The most popular board game games

4Play was a risqué trivia and multi-player board-style game released in the mid-1990s. Designed as a party game, it combined trivia questions, mini-games, and challenge...

Board game night went digital in 1998 with Axis and Allies, a strategy title that lets you rewrite WWII—assuming you don’t forget where you left your infantry. Fans of ...

What do you get when you mix Mad Max, Car Wars, and a fondness for vehicular homicide? You get Autoduel (1985, DOS), a top-down driving RPG where your car is your castle and your g...

You’ve never really lived until you’ve watched a rook pick up a pawn and slam dunk it into the floor. Battle Chess (1988) turns the world’s most intellectual boar...

Now with 27% more diplomacy and 300% more frustration! Axis and Allies: Iron Blitz (1999) takes everything from the original game and throws in extra scenarios, improved AI, and mo...

HeroQuest is a classic video game adaptation of the popular board game HeroQuest, released in 1991 by Gremlin Interactive. HeroQuest faithfully recreates the turn-based, ...

Space Hulk is an abandoned real-time tactical strategy game set in the Warhammer  40000 universe, developed and released by Electronic Arts in 1993 for DOS and Amiga systems. ...

Before Battle Chess, there was Archon. Imagine a board game where pawns and knights settle disputes not with rules, but with full-on gladiatorial combat. Archon gives you light ver...

You are Sherlock Holmes, and someone has committed a crime, possibly because they couldn’t handle the game’s UI. 221B Baker Street is a detective board game where your ...

Released in 1988, BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception is part RPG, part strategy, part “did I just die in the tutorial again?” You’re a young MechWarrior on...

Paranormal agents, conspiracy theories, and point-and-click puzzles that would make even a ghost sigh in frustration. Bureau 13 is like The X-Files if Mulder and Scully spent more ...

Think you’re good at making tough decisions under pressure? Advanced Civilization dares you to prove it by turning diplomacy into passive-aggressive warfare. Based on the cla...

Ever wanted to manage a kingdom, lead armies, go dungeon-crawling, and attend budget meetings? Birthright: The Gorgon’s Alliance makes all your fantasy micromanagement dreams...

Monopoly Deluxe is an abandoned turn-based top-down Monopoly adaptation  of the classic board game, developed by Parker Brothers and released by Virgin Interactive in 1992. Mo...

Classic Concentration brings the Alex Trebek game show to DOS, complete with low-res puzzles and that addictive memory card-flipping mechanic. Match two elephants, and boom—y...

If you’ve ever stared at a Monopoly board and thought, “This needs more spreadsheets,” then Oligopoly is basically your spiritual home. Released in 1987 for DOS, ...

Archon Ultra is what happens when you smash chess into an arcade cabinet and call it a day. This updated version of the original Archon throws in jazzed-up graphics and faster game...

If Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego had a caffeinated younger cousin, it would be Bush Buck: Global Treasure Hunter. You race around the globe chasing clues, dodging rivals, a...

Do you enjoy betrayal, backstabbing, and pretending to be a global power while actually being terrible at geography? Computer Diplomacy is the digital version of the classic board ...

Finally, a game where you don’t blast aliens—you launch real people into space, with all the white-knuckled tension of 1960s NASA. Buzz Aldrin’s Race into Space i...

Nuclear War is an abandoned turn-based strategy game designed by Eric Hyman and Jon Van Caneghem. Nuclear War was developed and released by New World Computing in 1989 for Amiga an...

Dogs of War (1996) drops you into a gritty mercenary’s life where missions mean money, and money means better gear. Set on Windows XP, the game blends strategy and action wit...

In Crazy Nick’s Parlor Games with Laura Bow, the famous young detective swaps clues for checkers, backgammon, and card tables. The change of pace is gentle—no bodies to...

Dark Legions is a 1994 strategy gem that asks: what if Archon got a DOS makeover with bloodier battles? You command armies of fantastical creatures, from vampires to trolls, across...