Devs Answer: What board games should you study?

Tabletop games are booming right now—so much so that you’re just as likely to see a board game adaptation of your favorite video game as you are of a popular TV show. There’s a big business analysis to be had about the modern board game surge combined with Kickstarter and crowdfunding, but more importantly, there’s some incredible design innovation taking place in the genre right now. 

While paper prototyping and other tabletop inspirations are as old as video games themselves, we wanted to hear from our readers what board games and tabletop games they thought were relevant for designers right now. So if you’re in need of some interesting systems, or want a bare-bones hard look at how simple games can build layered complexity, here’s a list of games you might want to gather some friends for.

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