The end of 2025 is fast approaching, and now that we’ve recovered from the post-turkey sleep, we’ll take a moment to recap our favorite tabletop games from 2025!
Ahoy: Fang & Fortune/Rivals & Renegades
A little niche, but if you enjoyed Leder Games’ Ahoy, these are wonderful expansions that allow players to control a pod of orcas, catapulting turtles, the Leviathan, and last (and least) a partying gang of pirates. What makes Rivals & Renegades so entertaining is the subtle gameplay changes that align perfectly with the theme: the orcas will utilize their pod mechanic to spread their patrols throughout the ocean while the turtles will rely on meticulous calculations for their catapult-launching. Fang & Fortune, on the other fin, contains the most interesting faction (Leviathan) who grows and gobbles across the map as a single entity, while the party pirates will build ships and host parties, though their gameplay is not as thematic as the other ones. – Spencer Patterson
A Place for All My Books
Introverts unite! Separately! In our own homes! This cozy game sees you organizing, reorganizing, and reading books at home to build up enough Social Battery to go into town and get more books, maybe a trinket from the shops, and if there’s time, more books! Players will get points for finishing projects as they shuffle around their piles and piles of books, and it makes for a very relaxing gameplay loop. The single player variant is slightly less so, since Penelope Eveready will keep you on your toes, but it’s still a fun time. – Andrew Borck
Battle of Hoth
This game is a reskin of Memoir ‘44, but with a Star Wars theme this time, and it really works. Players will control units on either the Rebel or Imperial Side, and get to activate certain units according to the card they play that round. Some might activate all of one type of unit, or just certain units more than once, or all the units in one section of the battlefield. The game ends up playing like a wargame-lite, where it gives you objectives but you’re limited in what you can do based on the card you played that turn. That being said, you still have to contend with terrain and distance that will modify your dice rolls, but it would be a great game to introduce someone to the wargaming side of the hobby. – Andrew Borck
Hot Streak
This game is every bit as zany as it looks: bet on wacky mascots though a shared deck over a series of 3 races. It’s chaotic, unpredictable, and yes, great fun. The theme and humor come through exceptionally well, leading to a raucous experience full of cheering, jeering, groaning, and celebrating. The production of this game is stellar, led of course by the mascot figures. There is little strategy in the game, but it’s so entertaining that it doesn’t really matter; in spite of its self-aware, party-game vibe, Hot Streak is a surprisingly solid design. – Stephen Hall
Magical Athlete – Overall Winner
The most basic of games. It’s literally a roll-and-move game (yes, you read that right) where players race to cross the finish line first. That’s it. That’s the game, and it defies expectations. By all accounts, this game should be terrible: it’s a chaotic, roll-and-move dice-fest, with next to no strategy, where you can lose turns and even get eliminated. It sounds like everything gamers hate… and yet, against all odds, Magical Athlete is a BLAST. – Stephen Hall
The Secret of Oki Island
Obvious Mimic has been putting out 5E compatible adventures for years now, all of them in a soloable or group format. Their solo books read like a D&D meets Choose Your Own Adventure book, with many dice checks to see when and if you can succeed at your task. Players will just need at a bare minimum, a few dice and a pencil, but a complete character sheet would be more fun. Oki Island is a swashbuckling adventure in the vein of Pirates of the Caribbean or Treasure Island, with a RPG twist or two thrown in. Even by yourself, the book is a lot of fun and highly replayable as you may want to go back and see what the opposite choices would have yielded for you. – Andrew Borck
Honorable Mentions
Patchwork Specials: 10-Year Anniversary Edition
All three of these are reprints. I’m not sure if I didn’t play enough games this year to come up with a better list, or if these classics are still great (and still classic) for a reason. Likely, it’s a bit of both. There’s always plenty of shiny new games out there, but I guess the lesson here is don’t forget the games that have been time-tested (even if their marketing schemes may not be as good). 😉