BGG Top 10 Games of 2017

With the year winding down, it’s time to look back at some of the awesome board games released in 2017. Unsurprisingly, most of these aren’t available in Australia yet (Update: Thankfully, it’s 2026 now and you can easily grab these at your local FLGS!). So instead of my expert opinion, you’re just going to have to rely on the 10 best board games of 2017 from Board Game Geek.

10. Azul

Abstract games are a dime a dozen but rarely do they look as good as Azul. With its colourful patterns and chunky tiles that look good enough to eat, it truly is a sight to behold. Yet, it’s not just a pretty paint job. It has accessible gameplay and some of the most agonizing in-game choices all year.

From the outset, you’re trying to add tiles to the wall of a royal bathroom. This entails picking up chunky Starburst-sized tiles from one of several factories and adding them to the wall on your player board. You gain points based on the type of tile and how you arrange them.

However, other players are trying to do the same. So they’ll be stealing tiles from underneath you, and trying to set you up with the worst tile combinations possible. It’s this high interactivity – and a bit of meanness – that makes Azul a thrilling board game and one of 2017’s best.

9. Clans of Caledonia

The board game snob inside of me says this is the only game on the list that looks like a board game. By that I mean, every other game looks modern and filled with graphics and art to match. In comparison, Clans of Caledonia is more reminiscent of Agricola and the type of board games we played before Kickstarter became a thing.

Art aside, Clans of Caledonia is an economic simulation that takes place in 19th-century Scotland. When the country transitioned from an agricultural powerhouse to an industrialised country heavily invested in trade and export.

You’ll spend turns placing different meeples out into the Scottish highlands trying to generate goods which you’ll then sell off into the market. This market moves with each purchase or sale, so you’ll have to monitor it closely to buy low and sell high!

It’s this combination of powering up your economic strength, diverse strategies, and market manipulation that makes Clans of Caledonia one of the stand-out board games of the year.

8. Lisboa

In 1755, the city of Lisbon came under attack by Mother Nature, suffering an 8.5-9 magnitude earthquake, a tsunami, and then three days of fires. Lisboa takes place in the days, weeks, and months after these events. As you, and other members of the nobility, attempt to rescue the city and rebuild it back to its original glory.

While Lisboa looks beautiful, with Eagle-Gryphon Games’ usual deluxification, it’s not a game for everyone. Vital Lacerda is known for his complex board games, and Lisboa is one of his most complex. It’s downright diabolical to describe how to play, or how to win. Yet, in saying that, it’s also one of Vital’s best.

If you haven’t played a Lacerda game before, he’s best known for designing games of tightly coupled systems. For example, in other games, you might have to build an economy to recruit an army, Vital’s games would have you build an economy to recruit an army to pillage a village which then forms the basis of your economy. In this way, everything is connected in a cycle.

This is absolutely at play within Lisboa. As all of the complex systems, of which there are many, bleed into one another so smoothly it’s like swimming in lukewarm butter. Creating this incredible machine that you attempt to manipulate in your favour. It’s mind-blowing fun for those with the wallet and the courage to play.

7. Pandemic Legacy: Season 2

After the success of Pandemic Legacy Season 1, the Pandemic series returned two years later with a new entry legacy system called Pandemic Legacy Season 2. Despite the lack of a creative title, the campaign is full of new ideas taking the Pandemic formula to new places and times it’s never been before.

Pandemic Legacy Season 2 takes place in a far-flung future where the plague is well out of control. Devastating cities and any place people regularly meet face to face. So you better believe us board gamers were the first to go. Still, humanity survives. It’s now up to you and your team to venture out into this world and see how you can help.

Pandemic Legacy Season 2 follows in the footsteps of the first game both narratively and gameplay-wise. Starting with an almost base version of Pandemic, you’ll play through a campaign of scenarios. With the outcomes of one game affecting the next. Being a legacy board game you’ll plant stickers on the board, rip up the cards, and perform other permanent actions changing the board game to match your experience.

6. Anachrony

Taking place in a world ravaged by an asteroid strike, you’re put in charge of one of the few remaining tribes. Your goal is to share what your people have learnt from the apocalypse and secure your tribe’s future. To do that you’ll need to travel to the capital city and spread political influence, or survive by exploring the harsh environment for resources.

For any other board game that would be enough of a story, but Anachrony isn’t so simple. Across the planet mysterious time rifts opened up, bringing news of another meteor heading towards the planet. You must do your best to ready your tribe to survive this second apocalypse.

Thankfully, you can use these time rifts to requisition much-needed resources from the future. However, if the future comes to pass, and you don’t have the same resources when the future comes around, you’ve created a paradox. Almost on the same level as Fry being his own granddad.

Anachrony is a big, heavy board game filled with wonderful ideas, taking worker placement games in a whole new direction on the space-time continuum. I can’t wait to get my hands on it. But with supply limited to Kickstarter and through Mind Clash Games’ shop, it might be a while before that happens.

5. Too Many Bones

According to Shut Up and Sit Down, Too Many Bones is the largest, and probably best, waterproof board game ever made. Every component is over-produced as plastic, resin, neoprene, or something else that can battle the elements. Although that’s only one part of Too Many Bones‘ reputation, the other part is that it is a great cooperative board game filled with dice chucking and character levelling.

Taking control of a Gearlock, a newly discovered fantasy race that looks like a crossbreed between gnomes and elves, you battle through an 8-12 scenario campaign. However, unlike RPGs like Vagrantsong, which while excellent will lose you an evening to play one or two scenarios. You’ll choose one of several campaigns in Too Many Bones and be done with it at the same time it takes to play Terraforming Mars.

During this campaign, you’ll upgrade and unlock new abilities for your character using dice and what looks like a neoprene version of Microsoft Excel. Seeing how your character changes during the campaign and experimenting with different builds is what keeps you coming back for more. However, it also helps that the campaigns are somewhat randomised and filled with plenty of choices. So it remains fresh well after you’ve beaten every boss.

4. Gaia Project

Gaia Project is this spiritual sequel to Terra Mystica. Gone are the fantasy races and earthen landscape, replaced by aliens and distant inhospitable worlds. You play a race of these aliens sent to inhabit the stars. Only, like a badly heated pool these planets do not make for a comfortable time. Therefore, it’s up to you to find the planets you want to live on and terraform the rest.

Of course, this all costs money, infrastructure, and technology which you’ll need to build up before you can expand. This is where the gameplay of Gaia Project comes in. Figuring out how to fly to new planets, terraform others, and not go bankrupt is the core gameplay loop.

If the pressure of your entire civilization wanting to reach the stars wasn’t enough. At the end of each round, a new objective is scored, incentivising you to put your plans on hold and chase after victory points.

Gaia Project is a wonderfully strategic game that comes with 14 unique alien races all with different abilities as well as paths to victory. Add on top of that a randomized setup and no two games are the same.

3. Spirit Island

My favourite game on this list, Spirit Island turned the cooperative board game genre on its head. With its relatively simple ruleset, it offers incredible deep choices for you to make throughout its runtime. Where the thrill is thinking four steps ahead of the enemy.

In this case, the enemy is boats and settlers coming to colonise your island. You play as an island spirit and must work with the local native population to stop them from taking root and drive them back into the sea.

To help with this is a large arsenal of mystical powers and innate abilities. However, not all are immediately useful and most take time to activate. Often allowing colonisers to do their damage before you can reply. As a result, there’s a large element of forethought and preplanning in playing Spirit Island that you just can’t find in any other cooperative game.

Yet, while the puzzle is incredibly meaty and fun to wrap your head around, there’s also an endless amount of content that comes in the box. With several spirits who all play distinctively different, and adversaries who change how the colonisers affect the island. It’s no wonder Spirit Island is one of the best board games of 2017.

2. Twilight Imperium (Fourth Edition)

If there’s one thing I know about Twilight Imperium (Fourth Edition) it’s that it’s a stupid board game. It’s expensive, takes up the entire table and all day to play. In the same breath though, it might just be one of the best board games ever created.

You take control of one of seventeen different factions in a quest to rule the galaxy. How you do this though is entirely up to you. You can play the military competitive hardass willing to fight all the time, or as a politician ensuring the right laws get put in place to secure your victory, or you can be an economic bargainer gaining influence through your money making.

It’s the length and complexity of Twilight Imperium that makes it an open sandbox. You can be whoever, or whatever you want to be and still win the game. So despite the investment of time, money, and laborious rules explanation, Twilight Imperium returns on that investment tenfold. Offering you a wild drama-filled spectacle that no other board game has come close to producing. Making it not just one of the best board games of 2017, but one of the best board games of all time.

1. Gloomhaven

Gloomhaven is Dungeons & Dragons without a dungeon master or any dice. How does that work? Extremely well as it turns out, as Gloomhaven is the best board game of 2017 according to BGG.

It’s well-earned, as the change from dice to cards makes Gloomhaven a lot more strategic than other dungeon crawlers. You have to plan out your moves in advance, make tough decisions about what you can and can’t do, and work with your fellow adventurers if you’re to have any chance to succeed.

Like Pandemic Legacy Season 2 above, this is also a campaign game and legacy game. As you play through the scenarios you will rip up cards, add stickers to the map to uncover new areas, and open many boxes filled with surprising components. Beyond all of this are the numerous ways to enhance and level up your character as the campaign progresses, giving each new play of Gloomhaven a distinct feel.

Overall, it combines the thinky-ness of Spirit Island with the thematic notes from Twilight Imperium(Fourth Edition). Along with the insane amount of content within the box, and support from the publisher, Gloomhaven is an easy winner of being the best board game of 2017.

As an aside, in 2020, Cephalofair Games released a stripped-down version called Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion. It’s fantastic in its own right but is also the best introduction to this heavy game at a fraction of the cost.

Want to see how the rankings evolved?

If you’re tracking how the top tier has shifted over time, explore our full BGG Top 10 Archive. We break down the highest-rated releases, standouts, and heavy hitters year by year.

Explore the BGG Archive →

Wow! There are some incredible titles released in 2017. Just looking at a top four including Gloomhaven and Spirit Island is such a treat. Any surprises for you this year?