Honestly, one of my all-time favorite categories of board games is just straight-up tile-laying games. There’s something fun and fantastic about just plonking down some tiles and eventually building something super cool and unique. Sometimes you’re farming, sometimes you’re building a city, and sometimes you’re specifically re-building a city after a fire or a war. This wide category of games covers games that make you feel like you’re really creating something cool and building it up. While the specific label is tile games or tile-laying games, I also reserve the right to include games that feel like tile-laying games either aesthetically or mechanically, as is my prerogative. Some card games really capture the same energy as tile-laying games, but you just use the cards as tiles, for instance. Others lean into the speed or the structure of tile-laying as you build up the greatest estate or, perplexingly, the worst robot. There’s a lot to like, here, from gameplay to theme.

Here are a few of my favorites: