Constructing a Deck

A board game in which the players use separate decks of cards to play, built ahead of time from a wide pool of alternatives and adhere to specified rules. Trading card games and collecting card games offer booster packs with a random collection of cards in each, whereas living card games and expandable deck games sell expansion packs with a fixed set of cards. (The term “living card game” refers to games created by Fantasy Flight Games, which owns the trademark.)

Magic: The Gathering, Android: Netrunner, Marvel Champions, and Arkham Horror: The Card Game are just a few examples.

Dexterity

Board games that require physical talent, such as Twister, or board games that only use fingers to move pieces about, such as Jenga. Flicking discs or other items with your fingers in games like Flick ’em Up, balancing things in games like Beasts of Balance, or even hurling objects around in games like Dungeon Fighter are all examples of this.

Cube Quest, Catacombs, Flip Ships, Flick ’em Up, crokinole, and Beasts of Balance are other examples.

Drafting

Drafting is a game mechanism in which players are given a set of alternatives (typically cards, but occasionally dice) from which they must choose one, leaving the rest for the next player to choose from. The choice can be made from a central pool of options shared by all players, or from a hand of cards handed between them. This might be a little aspect of a game, such as choosing an ability to use during a round, or it can comprise the whole game’s decision space.

7 Wonders, Sushi Go!, and Villagers are among examples.

Dungeon-crawler

Players assume the roles of characters navigating an area, commonly shown by a square grid map or a page from a book, while battling opponents controlled by another player, a companion app, or the game system itself.

Gloomhaven, Mansions of Madness, Star Wars: Imperial Assault, Mice and Mystics are just a few examples.

Engine-builder

You’ll create a “engine” in an engine-building board game, which will take your beginning resources and/or actions and transform them into more resources, which will turn into even more resources, which will typically turn into victory points somewhere down the line.

Res Arcana, Century: Spice Road, and Race for the Galaxy are examples.