Adaptation, the process by which a work is transferred from one medium to another, is a delicate and skill-intensive art, prone to going wrong at either end of its metamorphosis. Licensed games often get a bad rap. Maybe because they’re often bad. But that only makes good adaptations all the more important to celebrate. That’s what we’re doing today. These are 2024’s best adapted board games.

#6. Escape from New York

Designed by Kevin Wilson. Published by Pendragon Game Studio.

Oh my goodness. This game. This game. What trash. What pure wonderful garbage. Sticking close to the tone of its source material, Kevin Wilson’s Escape from New York is a wicked romp that knows what it’s about. Whether you’re plowing through crowds in a taxi, double-crossing your besties, or gunning down mooks with a MAC-10 (complete with a scope mounted on its suppressor), this game provides grungy thrills right until you escape Manhattan… or the bombs in your neck go kablooey.

Review: You’re the Duke! You’re the Duke!

#5. Mass Effect: The Board Game — Priority: Hagalaz

Designed by Eric Lang and Calvin Wong Tze Loon. Published by Modiphius Entertainment.

There’s no canoodling in this Mass Effect. When your game is this lean, there simply isn’t enough downtime for that. Set during Mass Effect 3, the team has deployed to a storm-swept planet to destroy a cache of unethical research before it falls into enemy hands. From there what happens is up to you, including which missions to tackle, how to develop your squad, and whether to detour for a squaddie’s personal objective. There were multiple squad combat games this year, but Mass Effect is the one with the biggest personalities and tightest gameplay.

Review: Wrex. Shepard.

#4. Thorgal: The Board Game

Designed by Joanna Kijanka, Jan Maurycy Święcicki, and Rafał Szyma. Published by Portal Games.

Don’t ever tell the internet you don’t know anything about Franco-Belgian comics! Woof. Anyway, while I don’t know the first thing about Thorgal’s source material — and therefore can’t judge whether this adaptation is all that lore-accurate — romping across an alt-history globe packed with actual giants, vengeful caliphs, and half-alien Vikings was one of the year’s premier delights. Props too for the use of polyominoes for exploration, combat, and tracking your characters’ hit points, adding bite to systems that are usually handled with as little thought as possible.

Review: Some Rando Viking

#3. The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game

Designed by Bryan Bornmueller. Published by Office Dog.

Sometimes it’s best to set your sights on a fixed image rather than trying to cover everything at once. That’s the secret strength behind this trick-taker, an adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Rings. By focusing on the first book in the trilogy, the game is able to sweep the corners missed by other adaptations, hanging out with Farmer Maggot and Goldberry. Oh, and my precious: Bill the Pony. Trick-takers often struggle to evoke anything beyond, well, tricks, but this one’s sense of character and place are its greatest draws.

Review: The Fellowship of Bill the Pony

#2. Slay the Spire: The Board Game

Designed by Gary Dworetsky. Published by Contention Games.

Given how directly Slay the Spire: The Board Game adapts Slay the Spire: Not The Board Game, some folks have voiced the opinion that it’s just a cardboard-ified version of the digital classic. Not so. Gary Dworetsky adapts the source material with a deft touch, ablating its complexity and scope so that its numbers are crunchable by ordinary brains. Better yet, its expanded focus on cooperative battling offers an actual improvement over the original. Taking down dungeon slimes and weird bird monsters is even better with friends.

Review: Friends Don’t Let Friends Slay Alone

#1. Wilmot’s Warehouse

Designed by David King, Richard Hogg, and Ricky Haggett. Published by CMYK.

Memory games are bad. As truisms go, that’s one very few people would have bothered to challenge. Until Wilmot’s Warehouse. This game is a moveable feast, a storytelling exercise, a minor miracle. Your objective is to remember thirty-ish tiles, each one bearing a nonsense image. Over the course of the game, everyone at the table contributes to the ongoing story of what is located where. The impressive part comes at the crescendo, when images are paired with those hidden tiles, only to reveal that, yes, you actually remembered the story. Add some satire about faceless corporations and Wilmot’s Warehouse becomes the year’s funniest title. Sure enough, it’s the game I’ve shown to the most non-gamers, and every one of them has come away feeling better than they went in.

Review: Ars Wilmot

That’s all, folks! What were your favorite adapted board games of the year?

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