Dominoes is a family of tile-based games played with gaming pieces. Each domino is a rectangular tile, usually with a line dividing its face into two square ends. Each end is marked with a number of spots or is blank. The backs of the tiles in a set are indistinguishable, either blank or having some common design. The gaming pieces make up a domino set, sometimes called a deck or pack. The traditional European domino set consists of 28 tiles, also known as pieces, bones, rocks, stones, men, cards or just dominoes, featuring all combinations of spot counts between zero and six. A domino set is a generic gaming device, similar to playing cards or dice, in that a variety of games can be played with a set. Another form of entertainment using domino pieces is the practice of domino toppling.
Mahjong or mah-jongg is a tile-based game that was developed in the 19th century in China and has spread throughout the world since the early 20th century. It is played by four players. The game and its regional variants are widely played throughout East and Southeast Asia and have also become popular in Western countries. The game has also been adapted into a widespread online entertainment. Similar to the Western card game rummy, mahjong is a game of skill, strategy, and luck. To distinguish it from mahjong solitaire, it is sometimes referred to as mahjong rummy.
Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left to right in rows or downward in columns and are included in a standard dictionary or lexicon.
Triominoes is a variant of dominoes using triangular tiles published in 1965. A popular version of this game is marketed as Tri-Ominos by the Pressman Toy Corp.
Carcassonne is a tile-based German-style board game for two to five players, designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and published in 2000 by Hans im Glück in German and by Rio Grande Games and Z-Man Games (currently) in English. It received the Spiel des Jahres and the Deutscher Spiele Preis awards in 2001.
Tantrix is a hexagonal tile-based abstract game invented by Mike McManaway from New Zealand. Each of the 56 different tiles in the set contains three lines, going from one edge of the tile to another. No two lines on a tile have the same colour. There are four colours in the set: red, yellow, blue, and green. No two tiles are identical, and each is individually numbered from 1 through 56.
Alhambra is a 2003 tile-based German-style board game designed by Dirk Henn. It was originally published in Germany by Queen Games in a language-interdependent version; an English-specific version was released in North America by the now-defunct Überplay. The game is a Muslim-themed update, set during the construction of the Alhambra palace in 14th century Granada, of the 1998 stock trading board game Stimmt So!, which in turn was an update of the 1992 mafia influence board game Al Capone; the original version was subsequently released as Alhambra: The Card Game. Upon its release, Alhambra won numerous awards, including the Spiel des Jahres award. Its success has led to the release of numerous expansion packs and spin-off games, and is becoming Queen Games' flagship franchise.
Rummikub is a tile-based game for 2 to 4 players, combining elements of the card game rummy and mahjong. There are 106 tiles in the game, including 104 numbered tiles and two jokers. Players have 14 or 16 tiles initially and take turns putting down tiles from their racks into sets of at least three, drawing a tile if they cannot play. In the Sabra version, the first player to use all their tiles scores a positive score based on the total of the other players' hands, while the losers get negative scores. Variations of the game contain four jokers. An important feature of the game is that players can move and reuse the tiles that have already been placed on the table.
Scrabble variants are games created by changing the normal Scrabble rules or equipment.
Ingenious is the English name for Einfach Genial, a German abstract strategy board game designed by Reiner Knizia under commission from Sophisticated Games and published in 2004 by Kosmos. Across most of Europe it is titled as the local translation of Ingenious or Simply Ingenious, the notable exception being Mensa Connections in the UK.
Take It Easy is an abstract strategy board game created by Peter Burley. It can be characterized as a strategic bingo-like game, and has been published by Ravensburger and subsequently by several other publishers since 1983.
BuyWord is a letter arrangement word game by American designer Sid Sackson. It is published by Face2Face Games.
mi×ma+h is a Canadian board game developed by Wrebbit and published in 1987. It resembles a variant of Scrabble in that tiles are placed on a crossword-style grid, with special premiums such as squares that double or triple the value of a tile and a 50-point bonus for playing all seven tiles on the player's rack in one turn. Unlike Scrabble, Mixmath uses numbered tiles to generate short equations using simple arithmetic. Wrebbit, maker of Puzz-3D jigsaw puzzles, has since been taken over by Hasbro, and it appears that Mixmath has been discontinued.
Kings Cribbage is a board game released by Cococo Games in 1997 that is a portmanteau-style game, scoring like cribbage but played similar to Scrabble.
Carcassonne: The Castle is a two-player German board game. It is designed by Reiner Knizia, although Carcassonne series creator Klaus-Jürgen Wrede is also credited. Like other games in the Carcassonne series, it is published by Hans im Gluck in German and Rio Grande Games in English.
Gheos is a tile-laying board game designed by René Wiersma. Graphic design and illustration was supplied by Joshua Cappel, and box cover art was painted by Allan Bednar. The game was published in 2006 by Z-Man Games.
Pyramid Power is a tile game, where the goal is to score points by placing triangle-shaped tiles next to other triangle-shaped tiles so that the colors on the touching faces match. Doing so scores the player points. It was published by Winning Moves Games USA in 2008 and is one of three games in their Brain-Ade line of quick puzzle games and features both multiplayer and solitaire versions. This game is no longer in production.
Bezzerwizzer is a trivia game based on answering questions belonging to a number of categories drawn at the beginning of the drawn. The game was invented in 2006 by the Dane Jesper Bülow. The game's name is a pun on "Besserwisser", a German term meaning "better knowing" or a "know-it-all".
Qwirkle is a tile-based game for two to four players, designed by Susan McKinley Ross and published by MindWare. Qwirkle shares some characteristics with the games Rummikub and Scrabble. It is distributed in Canada by game and puzzle company Outset Media. Qwirkle is considered by MindWare to be its most awarded game of all time. In 2011, Qwirkle won the Spiel des Jahres. A sequel, Qwirkle Cubes, was released by Mindware in 2009.
Keyflower is a Euro-style board game designed by Sebastian Bleasdale and Richard Breese, and originally published by R&D games in 2012. It can be played by 2-6 players. In this game, players use their workers to try to build the best village among the players, by earning the most victory points in 4 rounds. The game features strategic use of workers, where players use them both for bidding for new village tiles and to use them. It has received numerous honors, and is ranked as the 50th best game in BoardGameGeek as of 2019.
