Board games have been a classic way to bring families and friends together for some analog gaming fun for decades, and are still going strong with new board games coming out every year. Ranging from war, mystery, nature, and even horror, there’s bound to be a board game to suit any individual person’s tastes, each with unique artwork and engaging gameplay.
For players who prefer board games with beautiful visuals and polished art in whatever game they’re playing, this is no exception. With such a talented community of talented designers and artists behind so many different board games, finding a board game with specific visuals and play style is simply a matter of knowing where to look.
10 Wingspan
Anyone with a soft spot for birdwatching or nature, in general, is bound to appreciate Wingspan. Offering competitive, card-driven gameplay with a moderate learning curve, players of Wingspan gather cards and eggs to populate their forests, plains, and lakes to fulfill different objectives as they build their ecosystem. Players will gather food, fill nests, and place birds to earn points over four rounds, after which a winner is announced. Offering gorgeous illustrations for each bird, food token, and backdrop, players will not be left wanting artistic visuals while playing this game.
9 Scythe
An engine-building game set in an alternative version of 1920s European history, players represent one of five factions staking out territory and competing for resources around a mysterious Factory. Players gather recruits and villagers, build structures, and even activate mechs to advance their faction and survive encounters as each player forges their faction’s fate. In addition to thorough and complex gameplay, Scythe players enjoy a gorgeous array of artwork, paintings, and figurines of landscapes, mechs, and various characters within the game in a realistic yet stylized environment that blends nature and machines.
8 Everdell
For fans of the whimsical and nature-based fantasy, few will match such a theme better than Everdell. In Everdell, players lead a group of woodland creatures to establish territories and build cities in a valley of towering trees and mossy riverbanks.
Offering a whimsical set of cards and figurines in a painted, whimsical art style, players will meet charming characters, host events, and enjoy gorgeous landscapes while gathering resources in a unique set-up with a field, creek, and a pop-up tree holding several cards and characters.
7 Parks
The perfect game for lovers of nature, Parks celebrates the national parks of the US by allowing players to take on the role of two hikers as they trek through trails full of nature, wildlife, and gorgeous illustrations over the course of four seasons. Each trail represents one season, steadily growing and evolving as new tiles are added over the course of the game while players explore and collect memories through their travels, eventually exchanging said memories to visit a national park at the end of each hike.
6 Root
Fans of whimsical, storybook-inspired illustrations are bound to appreciate the art style in Root, a game full of adventure where players will compete and wage war for control over a vast wilderness. Each of the players in Root are given unique abilities at the start of the game, and will have different win conditions they’ll need to work towards, and the differences between the players’ factions will shape the narrative of the game, allowing great replay value and a unique experience every time the game is revisited.
5 Yggdrasil (Second Edition With Asgard Expansion)
With striking colors, striking character designs, and dramatic scenes from mythology, Yggdrasil’s second edition is full of memorable art in everything from the backgrounds to its characters. Players in Yggdrasil will work together, playing as Norse gods working to defend the Yggdrasil, the massive tree that supports the nine realms, from the forces of evil as Ragnarök approaches. Facing various challenges and monsters that seek to destroy the tree at all costs, players will have to work together to protect the Yggdrasil tree, and by extension all of the Nine Realms, in the final battle for the universe.
4 Mysterium
Taking place in a 1920s murder mystery, Mysterium provides a ghostly cooperative game of deductions, observations, and communicating with a murder victim from beyond the grave as they struggle to remember how they died. Offering dramatic, gothic illustrations and scenery with touches of mysticism and death, players will enjoy stylized characters and gorgeous illustrations as the murdered soul struggles to communicate hints about their death solely in the form of abstract ‘vision’ cards full of symbolism, surreal scenery, and colorful patterns that players must use to glean information from if they hope to find the killer.
3 Marcarade
Extravagant costumes, elaborate patterns, and vivid colors are a few of the many appeals in Mascarade’s illustration style in its cards and tokens alike. Suitable for up to thirteen players, Mascarade is a game of deception, bluffing, and subtlety as players will each receive a role card face down in front of them at the beginning of the game.
While their role is still a secret, players may claim the role of another in order to invoke their ability for the turn – weighing the risk and reward of either being caught in their lie or getting away with using the powers of any character in the game, so long as it goes unnoticed.
2 Iki
A game centered around art and trade in Edo, Japan, Iki is a strategy board game for up to four players taking place in the Nihonbashi district of Edo. Spending a year fostering as lofty a position within the cultural center as possible, players compete to collect the most Iki, a philosophy for the ideal way of life in Edo, to become the ideal citizen within the district. True to the spirit of the game’s objective, the cards and boards of Iki offer stylized illustrations meant to emulate Edo period artwork.
1 Pax Pamir: Second Edition
Taking the roles of Afghan leaders in the nineteenth century, players in Pax Pamir will compete to forge a new nation after the fall of the Durrani Empire. Players will form coalitions, garner loyalty and influence, and build their decks through a card market to fulfill a vast array of complex and intertwined military, cultural, and diplomatic actions to leverage their dominance over the region and fill the power vacuum the empire left behind. Boasting gorgeous cloths portraying the regions of the game, intricately carved and colorful wooden figures, and colorful cards with striking illustrations, Pax-Pamir is bound to be as beautiful to look at as it is engaging to play.