The coolest Prime Day board game deals, as picked by our tabletop gaming obsessives
Here are the board games we'd buy from Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days event this week.
PC gamers are often also tabletop gamers, and unless you're a real theater-of-the-mind type, neither are particularly inexpensive hobbies. So, alongside our collection of Prime Big Deal Days discounts on PCs, laptops, parts, and peripherals, we've gathered our favorite Prime Day deals on board games here. (Some deals are only available to Amazon Prime subscribers, but there's a free 30-day trial.)
In this list, we've included only items that A) we like, B) are actually cheaper than normal, and C) are slightly less obvious than Catan or Pandemic Legacy (although they are on sale). Any of these games would make great additions to your tabletop library.
- We're curating the best Prime Day PC gaming deals right here.
Spirit Island | 1-4 players | Co-operative | $89.99 $44.99 on Amazon (save $45)
There are scads of board games reinterpreting history and putting you in the shoes of explorers, traders, and colonizers, but this is the rare one to flip the script and cast you and your friends as spirits with magic nature powers who have to repel invading humans. Very replayable thanks to the varied abilities of the spirits, and the expansions are on sale, too! Jagged Earth even expands the game to six players.
King of Tokyo 2nd Edition | 2-6 players | Time to Play: 30 minutes
$44.99 $24.98 at Amazon (save $20.01)
This accessible board game basically turns Yahtzee into a competitive giant monster fight. Roll to see what actions and attacks you can make each turn, and use them to smash up the city and punch all the other kaiju in their enormous faces. This revised edition features new art and updated rules.
Memoir '44 | 2 players | Competitive | $64.99 $45.99 on Amazon (save $19)
A longtime BoardGameGeek fave, Memoir '44 is the board game you can probably talk your WW2-loving dad into playing. Just beware the possibility that he then demands you play it 200 times. It's an approachable strategy game that lets you play out the scenarios of a bunch of historic battles. Despite Memoir '44 being 20 years old, an expansion (also on sale) adding aerial combat came out just five years ago.
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective | As many players as you want | Co-operative | $57.99 $35.49 on Amazon (save $22.50)
One of our favorite co-op board games for ages, Consulting Detective is less a "board" game and more a collection of mysteries and flavorful booklets full of clues for a team of players to decipher. A great one for sitting around the living room and cracking a case with a load of players. And don't bother worrying about the rules, which suggest trying to solve the mystery faster than Sherlock. Most of the fun is in tracking down every lead you can think of.
Marvel Champions Core Box | 1-4 players | Time to Play: 45-90 minutes
$79.30 $39.49 at Amazon (save $39.81)
Playing as iconic Marvel superheroes, your goal is to work together to defeat the plots of various supervillains, switching between your costumed persona and your secret identity for different tasks. There are a ton of cards in the box for this price, and loads more can be added on with expansions.
Obscurio | 2-8 players | Asymmetrical co-op | Hidden identity | $55.99 $36.99 on Amazon (save $19)
A bit like modern classic Mysterium, this game from the makers of Dixit pits a team of paranormal investigators against a hidden traitor who's out to misdirect them. The team is guided by a GM who can't speak, but can provide you with images that should lead you to safety if you're clever enough.
Bruxelles 1893: Belle Epoque | 2-5 players | Competitive | $69.99 $24.99 on Amazon (save $45)
This re-release of a popular worker placement game integrates its expansion and updates it with some new art and design tweaks. In the era of art nouveau, you're trying to excel in your career as an architect by deploying your workers to collect materials and create works of art. It looks real nice, too.
Cthulhu: Death May Die | 1-5 players | Co-operative | $109.99 $82.49 on Amazon (save $27.50)
Lovecraftian games like Arkham Horror tend to be slow builds. There's a lot of investigation before you face whichever Great Old One is pushing the doom track toward the end of the world. Cthulhu: Death May Die says to hell with that and starts the game at the moment where a band of 1920s investigators kick the door down with shotguns in their hands and proceed to blast cultists. There's a decent chance you'll still all die, but this is one Lovecraftian game where you might just kill Cthulhu by shooting his ugly squid face. Even if you only play Cthulhu: Death May Die a handful of times, the 45 gorgeous minis that come with it will set you up for multiple future Call of Cthulhu campaigns. (The Call of Cthulhu Starter Set is 18% off on Amazon, by the way.)
7 Wonders Duel | 2 players | Time to Play: 30 minutes
$34.99 $21.99 at Amazon (save $13)
A one-on-one game where the goal is to lead your civilization to glory, drafting cards and gathering resources to work towards either a military or a scientific victory. At such a low price, it's an easy recommendation for any strategy lover.
Mysterium | 2-7 players | Time to Play: 45 minutes
$54.99 $28.36 at Amazon (save $26.63)
The spooky lovechild of Dixit and Clue/Cluedo, this game of psychic murder mystery is a test of your communication skills. At this price it's worth it for the beautiful art alone, which conjures both rich atmosphere and dream-like surrealism.
So many polyhedral dice | $5-$30 on Amazon (save $5 or more)
I have never noticed a big quality difference among the various resin polyhedral dice you can buy. I'm not running a casino, so I don't care about perfect balance: If it's solid and has numbers on it, it works for D&D. Your choice really comes down to taste, then, which is why I've just linked Amazon's whole collection of Big Deal Days dice deals. If you're tired of searching for a d4 when you need it, you can get 175 dice for $28.50.
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Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.
When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).
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