2025 Begins: Board Games for the Coming Apocalypse

The insightful game industry critic Tom Chick once started a forum discussion about which board games he most liked. He framed the conversation a great way – which games in your collection would you take to a desert island to entertain yourself for the long haul?

I love that way of thinking about games and I’ve got a comparable framing, albeit a darker variant than Tom Chick’s tropical fantasy. If the apocalypse ever arrives (and as we greet the New Year, and the upcoming American inauguration, nuclear annihilation seems just a little bit closer), what games will I frantically toss into the fallout shelter to keep me busy while I wait things out?

A lot of considerations come into play. It’s all board games, no video games – we’ll need to ration power. It’s mostly solo or cooperative games, in case I’m the last human on earth. And there’s only so many I can take. If I need to trundle down an ash-choked highway, like the protagonist of The Road, the weight of the board games in my rickety shopping cart could be a survival factor.

So as 2025 begins and we all engage in survivalist-style prepping, here are five boardgames in my collection that make life worth living – and a couple that I’d have to leave behind.

Spirit Island

My obsession over the holidays — I went all-in on its expansions and even got my son to play with me a couple of times. Thematically, mechanically, and visually, Spirit Island is a genuine treat and has rocketed up to near the top of my collection.

The brain-burn of each turn, especially playing two-handed solo games (my preference), is at just the right level. The pieces are stylish and beautiful, with attention paid to the materials. (The spirits and inhabitants of the island are represented by wooden chips and meeples, while the evil colonial invaders and their horribly spreading blight are all in plastic).

With never-ending depth and options (I still feel like a novice!) Spirit Island is a game that’s never boring, easy to set up, and simply a joy to play. It’s hands down the first game I’ll toss into the shelter.

Voidfall

I considered leaving this one behind; the sheer weight of the box is intimidating. But Voidfall, which I picked up last year, has slowly grown on me and become a favorite. 

I struggled with the game at first – its dense mechanics, odd iconographic symbols, and easy-to-miss exceptions aren’t as polished as Spirit Island. But the depth of its play makes it a game to savor and enjoy for the long haul.

The setup time on Voidfall is an absolute beast, probably on the order of an hour even for an experienced player. But the epic tale the game weaves of a space empire reforming and driving back an invading evil is spellbinding. And in the fallout shelter, there’s plenty of time to set the game up.

Shadows of Brimstone

This is a cheat because it’s really not one game at this point. I’ve acquired so much Shadows of Brimstone content and expansions over the years that it takes up an entire shelf (plus another shelf just for the miniatures!) But dang it, I’m cramming it all into my shopping cart for the Road.

Sprawling, mechanically loose, and mostly random, Shadows of Brimstone is still the best pure narrative-building dungeon crawler around. Sometimes I want the tight mechanics of Voidfall or Spirit Island, but sometimes I just want to explore the weird west with a gang of gun-toting misfits, chucking dice as I shotgun eldritch creatures.

Shadows of Brimstone delivers Ameritrash board gaming at a fantastically high level of production quality. I’ll need a lot of space in the shelter to set it up, because man, does it sprawl. But I look forward to finally having the uninterrupted months I need to play a long campaign!

D-Day at Omaha Beach

I have to take at least one good solo wargame along. I thought about selecting Skies Above the Reich, which I just wrote about a few weeks back. John Butterfield’s designs are all excellent, and I considered his amazing Ardennes game.

In the end, I settled on another Butterfield game: the superb and compelling D-Day at Omaha Beach. D-Day is, of course, an excellent setting for a solo wargame. It’s not only a battle that everyone knows, but it’s one where a scripted enemy flowchart can plausibly mount a disorganized but static defense, accurately representing the German response during the invasion.

The drama of the events of D-Day comes brilliantly to life in the design. A colorful map, focused on deadly emplaced firing positions, takes time to get used to. But once you see past the symbology, the game paints a picture of the events as vivid as the opening of Saving Private Ryan.

Chess (Yes, That Chess)

It seems silly if there’s no one around to play, but I have to throw a chessboard and a set of pieces on the shopping cart.

Chess was one of my first and earliest gaming loves. I played with my dad (who I eventually could regularly beat) and my stepdad (who still can crush me pretty handily). I still play online regularly. I can’t walk by a chessboard and not move a piece.

So even if all I’m doing is setting up the pieces and trying out openings and puzzles, rather than playing a full game, a chess set will come along with me to the shelter in the last days. Sometimes, good memories are more important than miniatures and complex mechanics.

Left Behind

So there you have it – the five games I’m bringing into the fallout shelter. But I’m leaving so many great options on the shelves. I considered Feast for Odin, a deep and complex worker placement game with a great solo mode. I thought about Scythe. I eyed Terraforming Mars and Fallen Lands (thematically appropriate to this exercise!) and Eldritch Horror. 

Still, the exercise is more interesting when I’m forced to make tough choices. Some decisions were easier than others; there are a couple of games I know I wouldn’t bring.

I was an early adopter of Gloomhaven when it first came out. It’s a brilliant fantasy story game with an epic feel, brain-burning mechanics that rival Voidfall, and a ton of content. But in the years since I first played it, it’s not been called back to the table. It’s fiddly, with tons of setup and tracking. Several scenarios have notable balance issues, which can make the game more of a chore than an immersive experience.

And if I needed a meaty campaign game to scratch the exact same itch as Gloomhaven, there are other ones out there that I enjoy more. I heaped praise on Shadows of Brimstone already, but any one of the Hexplore It! series would be my go-to fantasy board game experience before Gloomhaven.

So when the bombs fall, Gloomhaven goes into the bonfire. The box is big and weighty, with enough cardboard to burn to keep me warm for a night – though I’d set aside all the miniatures first. No one wants to add fumes from that much plastic burning to the post-apocalyptic haze.

Sadly, my beloved Dark Tower remake also goes on the fire. I love the game. It’s not the most mechanically deep game I own, but it’s easy to teach, has tons of content, and always takes me right back to my childhood when I play it. 

But finding batteries for the tower after the bombs fall will be impossible. And any game that’s partially driven by an app… well… that’s no good once the internet drops for the last time.

It’s sad to think about culling my extensive board game collection, even in the apocalypse scenario. But I’m pretty confident the five games I mentioned above would keep me busy as I wait out the radiation. 

A harsh reality intrudes on this little thought experiment. As a sedentary Gen-X game developer, odds are I’m not around for long once things go sideways. It seems more likely I’d end up roasting over a mutant’s cooking fire than enjoying board game time in the fallout shelter.

But even in those final few days, damn it, I want to be gaming!

Happy New Year! The Scree Games blog will be less regular for a while, as I’m taking on a new venture this year – more on that soon! Normally I post new content on Tuesdays, with a repost on Medium on Wednesdays.