Do people still D.T.R.? When I was a youngling, the acronym stood for Define The Relationship, that belly-clenching moment when two people would sit across from one another, lock eyes, and hold a serious discussion about whether to go steady. Nowadays it probably stands for Do The Rhombus. What is the Rhombus? I couldn’t tell you. Too old, me.

Something was in the air this year. Love, sex, breakups, and awkward situationships, to be specific. Weird, I know! For whatever reason, 2025 was the year we decided to actually get squishy for once. What follows are the year’s strongest exemplars.

#6. Conviction

Designed by Xoe Allred. Published by Lunarpunk Games.

It was deeply tempting to feature Xoe Allred’s Persuasion, as it remains one of the finest board games about relationships ever designed, and moreover now has a shiny new release from Hollandspiele. But I featured its print-and-play version back in 2022 — the topic of the day was “trauma,” take from that what you will — so instead this seemed like a good chance to talk about Conviction, the spiritual sequel to that game.

Conviction is the morning after of relationship games. The dream couple has been sealed in holy matrimony. Hooray! Only now it seems they didn’t discuss something important during the trial period. Oh no! Blending role-play, card counting, and all of ten minutes, Conviction is Allred’s portrayal of what happens when a couple quarrels, thus beginning either their reconciliation or the end of their mutual journey. With some investment from both players, it’s a striking meditation on… well, pretty much every adult relationship, to be honest. Mine, anyway.

Review: Lovers’ Quarrels

#5. We Need to Talk

Designed by Brendon Fong. Published by Skeptical Otter Games.

Trick-taking and shedding represent two sides of the same coin, a statement that surely won’t get in me trouble with the purists. We Need to Talk bends that coin into a möbius strip, tasking its duo with both winning tricks and pruning uncomfortable memories. That’s because they’re going through a bad breakup and are now trauma-dumping their shared reminiscences, good times along with the bad, awkward, and in-between.

We’ve all been there. Most of us. Not the dream couples, I guess. They’re stuck in the entry above this one. What makes We Need to Talk shine is the way it merges its conceptual framework with its gameplay. The illustrations capture the moments that make up many relationships, only to fade into the background or linger intrusively in the back of your character’s mind. Will you press onward to something new, or remain trapped in a memory prison? That’s up to you.

Review: Eternal Sunshine of the Trick-Taking Mind

#4. That’s the Spirit!

Designed by Connor Wake. Published by Always Awake Games.

“So, which of our friends killed us?” has got to rank up there as one of the most awkward questions one spirit can ask another while awaiting reincarnation. Especially when it’s the fourth time your group has been killed by an embarrassing shared accident. Did we explode this time? Get poisoned? Were we swept away by a tornado while watching Twisters, despite ample warnings that a storm was bearing down on our location and that we might be trading our lives to view a cinematic catastrophe?

Whatever the reason, whoever the culprit, it’s our job to figure them out. Or conceal them, if you were the one responsible for our fellowship’s untimely demise. That’s the Spirit! is as peculiar a social deduction game as they come, chock-full of strange abilities and uncomfortable social circumstances, both on the table and above it. It’s an extended conversation about who screwed up this time. Don’t expect anybody to take responsibility for free.

Review: Afterlives

#3. Adulting

Designed by Eric Dittmore. Self-published.

Not many board games are as charming as Adulting, a title about surviving a hectic weekend full of chores, anxious screen time, and maybe, just maybe, some self-improvement. The core concept is deck-building, but in the most fluid fashion imaginable, cards bouncing in and out of your hand with nearly every action.

But Adulting is also a relationship game almost entirely thanks to its multi-tiered objectives. Everyone at the table must work together to avoid burnout, caused by the pileup of too many chores. At the same time, everybody has a different idea for what they hope to get out of their weekend, and is given free rein over how to pursue that goal. While some players work together to tackle the chores, others are free to irritate their housemates by pursuing their objectives at all costs — or even mark themself as the self-sacrificing parent willing to absorb the group’s stress. The result is an affectionate portrayal of cooped-up group dynamics.

Review: Joy in the Burnout

#2. The Hedgehog’s Dilemma

Designed by Scott King. Self-published.

I’m not actually sure how to describe The Hedgehog’s Dilemma in a snippet. Part fable, part exposition on a philosophical metaphor by Arthur Schopenhauer, and part marriage proposal, this trick-taker covers quite a lot of ground. As in Adulting, the victory conditions provide much of the context. If everyone’s pieces occupy the same space, everybody wins together. If they’re all apart, everybody loses. More likely, if some are together and others are apart, the game kicks over to a scoring phase that grows increasingly desperate and/or thrilling with each successive tally.

There are other wrinkles, but that’s enough to set the stage. Often, all it takes to flip the switch between magnanimous and petty is the reveal of a single card. It feels like a parable in game form, drawing out social behaviors through simple rules and clear incentives. I can safely say I haven’t played anything quite like it.

Review: A Prickle of Trickers

#1. Molly House

Designed by Jo Kelly and Cole Wehrle. Published by Wehrlegig Games.

There’s a warm heart at the center of Molly House; a warm heart that beats in spite of moralizing cruelty, and which might be stilled by fellow hearts that have succumbed to panic. As a “molly” — a queer person in Georgian England, one whose identity likely strikes most of us today as foreign — your task is to find joy among the arcades and drinking-houses of London. This is a fraught business. Almost assuredly a doomed business. But a business worth pursuing nonetheless.

Over the past year, I’ve had the privilege of introducing Molly House to a wide range of players. Some have been like myself. Others have been queer in varying shades. In nearly every case, the response has been a surprising wellspring of empathy. Molly House is, among other things, full of parties both riotous and sad, fidelities and betrayals, and surprises both great and small. Every so often a board game comes along to succeed where every other medium has failed, investing us in a time and place that would otherwise go overlooked. Molly House is that game.

Review: Love and Heartbreak in Georgian London

Whew! That’s a lot of board games about relationships. Did you play any such titles this year? And if so, what were your favorites. Come along now. D.T.R. for me. (Define The Recreation.)

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