What’s a Eurogame?

In a board game context, a Eurogame is a type of tabletop board (or card) game that punched through a 1980s and 90s market dominated by large American and British publishers – Mattel, Hasbro, Milton Bradley and Waddingtons, and principally led by German designers and publishers ushering in the modern era of board games.

Eurogames introduced elegantly designed board games, beautifully illustrated boards, tokens, cards and tactile wooden pieces with a deeper strategy to a much wider adult audience – board games were no longer the preserve of children.

Eurogames (sometimes referred to simply as Euros) rely less on luck – dice rolls, random cards being dealt and trick taking, and introduce skill, strategy or planning and the challenges of resource management, and usually have multiple ways to win or accumulate points.

Eurogames usually have a definite end point (looking at you Monopoly) – once a specified number of turns has passed, a resource depleted, or card deck has been exhausted, and fortunately for families the world over, no player elimination (tutting, shaking my head and still looking at you Monopoly).

Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, Azul, Codenames and Pandemic are just a few of the successful commercial breakthrough Eurogames of the last 30 years and have introduced millions of people to a whole new style of board games beyond the multi-decade stranglehold enjoyed by the likes of Monopoly, Risk and Cluedo.