In those now-unreachable years before my daughters came along, I remember balking at certain statements. “Some things you simply can’t understand until you have children,” someone would say. Now that I’ve had kids, I’m adult enough to admit they were right… but still juvenile enough to believe they were drafting their offspring into props to prove a point.

And what, exactly, have my daughters taught me? The unnamed emotion of putting an infant to sleep on my stomach. The mind-blanking terror of sitting beside a hospital bed. The way even the simplest of board games can become profound shared experiences. What follows is a list I never thought I would write: the games that transformed my year not because they were innovative or philosophical, but rather because they let me pass a few meaningful minutes with my girls.

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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.

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I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a publisher have more of a bottle rocket year than DVC Games. Home to the design collective Jasper Beatrix — which thankfully avoids the pitfalls of the now-defunct Prospero Hall by offering actual attribution — DVC Games has established itself as a cradle of innovation. Even when their individual titles riff on the familiar, they’re undoubtedly riffs, jazzy little grace notes that bring their own interpretation to the genre.

Which is to say, this is the tightest focus ever featured in Best Week. These folks deserve the plaudits. Just take a look.

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This will surprise absolutely nobody, but I am sometimes accused of being a big old bummer. A downer. A morose feel-bad baby. Nietzsche said that if you stare into the abyss it’ll gaze back, and I’ve found that to be true, but in locking eyes with the abyss I also find we come to an understanding. We’re poorer in spirit if we don’t lock eyes with the void now and again.

There were a number of void-locking titles this year. Today is a celebration of the best of them. Take my hand, abyss. It’ll be all right.

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What a year. Best of times, worst of times, that’s what we’re supposed to say. For board games, though, 2025 was a banner year, full of tremendous titles both big and small.

As ever, Best Week is a celebration of the board games that struck me the most roundly, and today I’d like to cover the games that won me over thanks to their beauty, at least in part. These are the games that transported me to new places, that showed me wondrous sights, or that used their visual design in such a way that I found an old topic illuminated in a manner I hadn’t considered before.

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Yesterday we talked about the best board games that embodied our hobby’s unique sense of togetherness. Today, we must invert the concept. These are the best board games of 2024 that are also about togetherness… in the word’s more uncomfortable sense. Cramped alliances, awkward bedfellows, partners of convenience. A fitting end for one of the strongest years in memory.

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Board games: aren’t they really about family? Friends? Togetherness? Eh, sometimes. But for those times, today we’re talking about the best games of 2024 that thrive on positive human interaction. These are the games that are about sharing experiences with your loved ones. Especially if you aren’t in the mood for anything too competitive.

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