Video games owe a lot of its success to board games. Dungeons & Dragons alone has had elements of its gameplay cribbed by countless video games, such as the concepts of quests, health points, item usage, combat and more. If you dig far enough into the history of video games, you can probably find a theme or gameplay concept rooted in a board game. Video games have also innovated within its own space. From Super Mario to Call of Duty, there are a ton of unique experiences that have their roots in this digital medium.
Nowadays, you’ll see those video game specific concepts appear in board games. Whether they’re board games based on video game properties or digital gameplay mechanics that have gone analog, they feed off one one-another to push each other forward.
In this edition of the Board Game Night Playlist, we embark on an adventure that marries the best of both worlds. This list should be particularly interesting for video game fans looking for a smooth transition into the analog side of things. Time to press start on this playlist!
From the Himilayan mountains to to the bottom of the sea, the world is yours for you and a friend to explore in Lost Cities. Designed by the legendary 
Start with Scrabble. Keep the tiles, but remove the board and replace the letters with shapes. Now you have Qwirkle. While this concept sounds strange at the outset, it’s actually brilliant when you think about it. By removing the board and the vocabulary barrier, Qwirkle focuses on the best part of Scrabble, which was the ways in which you could strategically place tiles in ways that garner the most points. Don’t you love it when you’re able to play one word that actually spells out two words because you placed them in just the right spot? That’s what Qwirkle is all about, without needing to memorize a dictionary.
One of my favourite things to do as it pertains to board games is to introduce newcomers to the hobby. With the way the scene has grown in terms of gameplay innovation and variety, I feel like everyone can enjoy what board games are today on some level. From coworkers, to kids, to those who read this website, to even my mom, it’s been cool to be a part of someone discovering how fun modern games can be.
In Third Person 