The Best Wooden Board Games

Board games are made up of all sorts of materials – from plastic components, to elaborate resin miniatures, to the more unusual, like dish towels and candles. Although wooden board games may not be the norm, they represent an eco-friendly, long lasting, and often beautiful looking area of board games. We’ve compiled a list of the very best of those wooden games that will be a delight on your tabletop. These wooden board games can also be stylishly displayed on a coffee table, enhancing both the aesthetics and interactivity of living spaces.

Introduction to Wooden Games

Discover the Charm of Wooden Games

Wooden games have been a staple of family game nights for centuries, offering a unique and engaging way to spend quality time with loved ones. From classic board games like Chess and Checkers to modern abstract games like Quoridor and Pathagon, wooden games have something to offer for every age and skill level. Whether you’re looking for a fun and challenging way to spend endless hours with friends and family or a sustainable option for environmentally conscious gamers, wooden games are an excellent choice.

Benefits of Wooden Board Games

A Tactile Delight with Craftsmanship and Quality

One of the most significant benefits of wooden board games is the tactile experience they offer. Unlike digital games, wooden games provide a hands-on experience that engages the senses and promotes a deeper connection with the game. The craftsmanship and quality of wooden games are also unparalleled, with many games featuring beautifully crafted wooden pieces and boards that are designed to last for generations. Whether you’re a seasoned gamer or just starting out, wooden board games offer a unique and enjoyable experience that is hard to find with digital games.

Encourages Social Interaction and Unplugs Families

Wooden board games are also an excellent way to encourage social interaction and unplug families from their screens. In an age where digital devices dominate our lives, wooden games offer a refreshing alternative that promotes face-to-face interaction and healthy competition. Whether you’re playing a two-player game like Quoridor or a multiplayer game like Pucket, wooden games are an excellent way to bring people together and create lasting memories.

A Sustainable Option for Environmentally Conscious Gamers

Finally, wooden board games are a sustainable option for environmentally conscious gamers. Unlike digital games, which require energy and resources to produce and play, wooden games are made from natural materials that are biodegradable and non-toxic. Additionally, many wooden games are designed to be played for endless hours, reducing the need for frequent replacements and waste. Whether you’re looking for a fun and challenging way to spend time with friends and family or a sustainable option for environmentally conscious gamers, wooden games are an excellent choice.

Quoridor: Abstract Games

By: Gigamic

Players: 2-4

Time: 15 minutes

The first, and arguably best wooden game of modern board gaming comes from Gigamic, and it’s Quoridor. At first, the box is unassuming – it looks like an older style board game box, that doesn’t always promise a lot of fun. But, if you opt not to judge this game by its cover, you’re in for a really fun surprise.

Quoridor is a simple race to the other side of the board. Each turn, you choose to move your token forward in pursuit of the goal, or you can choose to place a wall somewhere on the board. Doing so means you can potentially thwart the attempts of your fellow player, or at the very least slow them down – but you must be careful, as they’ll be trying to do exactly the same to you. The first player to reach the other side wins, emphasizing the competitive aspect of being the first to achieve the goal in Quoridor.

This game is a great replacement for chess (although more on that in a moment), as it’s similarly abstract and heavy in strategy, but without the required memorizing of moves or combinations. You can certainly get better at Quoridor by practicing and uncovering your own means of playing, but the variation in games is surprisingly vast, especially when playing against more players – something which Chess certainly can’t offer. The pieces are really pleasingly made, and it’s a really eye catching game as a result. However, we should also mention the newest variant of the game – Pac Man Quoridor.

Pac Man Quoridor

If you’re buying your first copy of Quoridor, there’s no harm in looking for the Pac Man variant of the game if you’re a fan of the franchise. Ultimately, the game can be played exactly as Quoridor does – which is why this hasn’t warranted its own entry on this list – but it has two bonuses to it. One, is that the pieces with it are exceedingly pleasing, maintaining the wooden components, but now they’re Pacman and the Ghosts, exactly how you’d hope they’d be. The second is that you get another mode of play, where up to four people can assume the role of the ghosts, chasing after Pac-Man around the board, who is trying to pick up power pellets. It’s no easier a game, but it adds a really fun variation. The game is harder to find at the moment, but if you happen to uncover a copy, we’d recommend it. 

We also rated Quoridor as one of the best games for 11 year olds – see what else made the list!

Chess

By: Unknown

Players: 2

Time: Varies

Chess is a classic, long historied abstract board game, and whether you know it because you’ve played it, or because you’ve seen it around, it’s highly unlikely you’ve never heard of it – so we’ll keep this brief. Chess is a duel of two players seeking to remove their opponent’s King piece from the checkerboard, using pieces with different movement abilities. The game is highly strategic and has been considered in popular culture a symbol of intelligence, though in many studies this has been debunked. Regardless of why you might play though, it’s a game so popular, so easily themed, and has such potential for luxury, that it’s no surprise the frequency with which you can find a wooden version. Chess is also suitable for kids and can help develop skills like critical thinking and creativity.

Nekojima

By: Unfriendly Games

Players: 1-5

Time: 15-30 minutes

Possibly the newest on this list, Nekojima is from a small publisher named Unfriendly Games, but has made its mark in a small amount of time. Players are faced with building a power pole network on the tiny island, but must be considerate of the cats as they do. Although this game isn’t entirely wooden – there’s string and cardboard cats – the power poles mentioned are fully and satisfyingly wooden, and it is these that you’ll place and stack for maximum effect.

Essentially, you’ll roll one die to figure out where to place power poles that are connected by color, drawing a token to see which color pole you’ll need to place. If you draw a black token though, you’ll need to ensure a home for the cat – by dangling it from the wire, so they can play! As space becomes limited, you’ll need to build upwards, creating a gorgeous construction of wood, colors, and happy cats. Just don’t be the one to let it fall…

It’s got competitive and cooperative modes, but also some great rule variations included, so once you’ve got the hang of the game, you’ve still got plenty to do.

Cathedral

By: Family Games

Players: 2

Time: 20 minutes

Cathedral was first published in 1979, and while some reprints of the game saw it merge into plastic territory, both the original and the modern deluxe versions still sport some great wooden components, which earn it its spot on this list. In Cathedral, the aim is to occupy the most land, and players do this by placing the buildings of their color onto the board, surrounding the cathedral. However, territory can be captured, and pieces lost, and the player with the most squares worth of buildings left over is declared the loser. Like many wooden games, this is an abstract strategy game. It’s been described as a modern medieval (due to its setting) classic, and it certainly maintains the aesthetic of a more modern board game too. The game progresses in rounds, with each round involving strategic placement of buildings.

Tokyo Highway

By: Itten Games

Players: 2

Time: 30 minutes

Tokyo Highway proves that a lovely wooden board game doesn’t need to be a complex or a huge one, and instead is perfectly pleasing with tiny wooden cars, stackable columns, and roads that are made up of nicer versions of coffee stirrers. That might not sound like the makings of a great game, but surprisingly it really is.

Players will be trying to place their tiny cars each turn, by placing roads across the network on top of placed columns. It’s really that simple – put down a column. Put down a road. Put down a car. But your opponent is trying to do the same thing, and building becomes trickier, more interconnected, and more fraught, surprisingly quickly. There are rules for precisely how you can place your items, but the winner is declared after ten cars have been successfully placed. The game’s rule set is crucial in managing the placement of roads and cars, ensuring a balanced and engaging gameplay experience.

The game doesn’t take long to raise itself off of the table, into a quite impressive group of interconnected roads that seems almost impossible to be true in real life – until you see the truly incredible highways of Tokyo, after which this is named. Whilst we’ve loved playing the two player version, you can also find an up to four player version, often listed under the same name, and there are expansions to be found too.

Catch the Moon

By: Kosmos / Bombyx

Players: 1-6

Time: 20 minutes

Catch the Moon is a game that manages to turn a standard dexterity game into something whimsical and delightful. Ultimately, it’s a game of stacking wooden ladders in combinations without allowing the structure to fall, but somehow it invokes a real feeling of dreaminess, reaching for the moon with every increase. Catch the Moon is a great choice for family game night, fostering enjoyment and bonding among family members.

On a turn, the player will roll the dice to see how they must place their ladder – either so it touches one other ladder, two other ladders, or must become the tallest ladder in the structure. If you fail in your endeavor, you collect a tear. Collecting the last tear sees you lose, and the player with the fewest tears is the winner. For two-player games, a player loses by collecting three.

The wooden ladders at first don’t seem anything special, but when you start to stack them, you begin to create this incredible, seemingly gravity-defying structure. The base (admittedly not wooden, which is a shame) is designed to look like a cloud, and the combination of impossible structure atop a cloud, with talk of reaching the moon, lends to its dream-like feel. Ultimately, it’s a lot of fun to place the ladders, and even better to look at them afterwards and realize how cool a final piece you contributed to.

Conclusion

Wooden board games tend to be either abstract games (see: Chess, Quoridor) or dexterity games (see: Catch the Moon, Nekrojima), but the variation of games within those genres is staggering. Do you want a Pac Man inspired battle against ghosts, or a whimsical attempt to reach into the night sky? All of this and more are available on our list of fantastic wooden board games. 

Wooden Board Games FAQ