The best "Mensa Select🇺🇸" winners and nominees 2025

Azul invites you to step into the captivating world of Portuguese artistry and craftsmanship. This board game draws inspiration from the introduction of azulejos, originally white and blue ceramic tiles, by the Moors. The tiles found a new home in Portugal when King Manuel I, during a visit to the Alhambra palace in Southern Spain, was enchanted by the exquisite Moorish decorative tiles adorning its interior. Filled with awe and inspiration, the king promptly ordered the embellishment of his own palace in Portugal with similar decorative tiles. As a skilled tile-laying artist, you are tasked with the prestigious mission of adorning the walls of the Royal Palace of Evora.

Time's Up! is a lively and entertaining charades-based party game, ideal for playing in teams of two or more. It's particularly engaging when played with teams of two. The game revolves around guessing famous historical or fictional characters, with each player contributing to a communal deck of names used across three distinct rounds.

6 nimmt!, also known as Take 5, Category 5 and other names, is a card game focused on scoring as few points as possible. It combines elements of strategy, prediction, and a bit of luck.

Clank!: A Deck-Building Adventure is an exciting board game where players become daring thieves, sneaking into a dragon's lair to steal artifacts while avoiding making noise to prevent waking the dragon.

Players embark on a three-day journey through human history, traveling through time to experience significant moments from the past. Each day represents a round in which players choose historical events to spend hours on, gaining advantages like ticking off points on their itinerary and collecting time crystals to manipulate the space-time continuum in future turns. Points are also earned for visiting events in chronological order, and the player with the most points after three rounds wins.

Qwixx is a fast-paced and engaging dice game that involves all players actively, regardless of whose turn it is. It combines simple mechanics with a need for strategic decision-making, making it a fun and interactive game for all involved.

Wits & Wagers is a unique and engaging party game that combines elements of trivia with betting and strategy. It stands out from traditional trivia games by allowing players to win not only by knowing the answers but also by smartly wagering on the guesses of others.

Akropolis is a strategic board game set in ancient Greece, where players take on the roles of skilled architects competing to build the most prestigious city. The game focuses on urban planning, resource management, and tactical tile placement.

Imagine is a creative and engaging party game that challenges players to guess over a thousand different items from various categories using 61 unique transparent cards. These cards can be combined by placing them next to each other or by layering them on top of one another to create representations of the items to be guessed. The key rule is that players must convey these concepts silently, relying solely on their ability to manipulate and combine the cards to express their ideas.

Players aim to bring all their wizards home to the Raven Castle before their opponents. The game board is set up in a circle with towers placed in a specific order, and each player starts with a certain number of wizards and movement cards. Players move their wizards or towers based on their played cards, capture opponents' wizards to fill their potion bottles, and ultimately try to place their last wizard in the Raven Castle to win. The game can also be played in teams with a variant that adds various spells.

In Dominion, you step into the shoes of a monarch, much like your ancestors, ruling over a small, picturesque kingdom. However, your ambitions stretch far beyond the peaceful realm you've inherited. Your goal is to expand your territory, transforming these modest lands into a vast dominion filled with diverse landscapes and resources.

Players engage in a deceptively cute and challenging abstract strategy game for two. Each time a player places a kitten on the bed, it shifts other kittens on the board, creating a dynamic gameplay experience. Align three kittens to transform them, and then align three cats to win. The game features a fabric board that fits over the game box and includes 32 adorable wooden cat figures.

Anomia is a fast-paced card game that tests players' ability to quickly recall random information under pressure. The game draws on players' knowledge of various categories like food, music, and more. Gameplay involves drawing cards and facing off with other players in a battle of quick thinking when matching symbols are revealed. Players must rapidly provide examples of the category on their opponent's card, with successful answers winning them the card. The challenge intensifies with wild cards that create unexpected matches and cascading face-offs triggered by card exchanges.

Players take on the role of tamers hunting various monsters and spirits to train them as servants. In this fantasy world, many creatures live in harmony, with dragons being the most valuable and noble. The player who manages to tame the most exceptional servants wins. Each round consists of three phases: hunting, action, and resolution, where players draw cards, perform actions, and utilize the effects of summoned cards. The game features seventy creatures inspired by myths from around the world.

Gizmos is a dynamic and inventive board game that challenges players to build the most efficient and powerful machines at a competitive Science Fair. The game is a blend of strategy and resource management, where players vie to earn the most victory points through clever machine construction.

Raiders of the North Sea is a vibrant board game set during the Viking Age, where players embody Viking warriors vying for the Chieftain's recognition through strategic raiding and resource management.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle is a cooperative deck-building game set in the beloved world of Harry Potter. Players join forces as Hogwarts students to protect the castle from dark forces.

Lanterns: The Harvest Festival is a beautifully themed game where players decorate a palace lake with vibrant floating lanterns. It's a strategic and visually appealing game of tile placement and set collection.

Snake Oil offers a refreshing twist on party games, where creativity, quick thinking, and persuasive skills reign supreme. Players transform into cunning salespeople, concocting bizarre products from a random assortment of word cards to pitch to various "customers" drawn from a deck of unique character cards. The aim is not just to sell a product but to tailor the pitch to the whims and needs of an ever-changing clientele, ranging from pirates to zombies.

Ingenious, also known as Einfach Genial, is a strategic tile-placement game that challenges players to think tactically about color scoring. It's a game that balances individual progress with the need to perform well across different areas.

TransAmerica is a straightforward and engaging railway-themed board game where players work to connect a set of cities across the United States using rail lines. The game emphasizes strategic planning and efficient use of shared networks, offering a blend of individual strategy and interactive play.

In Architects of the West Kingdom, set against the backdrop of the late Carolingian Empire around 850 AD, players step into the roles of royal architects. Tasked with constructing important buildings and advancing the construction of the Archbishop's cathedral, this game uniquely combines resource management, worker placement, and moral choices into a rich strategic tableau. Players vie for the King's favor and maintain their noble status in a world where virtue and vice coexist.

Twenty years after his journey around the world, Charles Darwin writes about the origin of species and seeks new information about animal life, especially from unexplored continents. Young, adventurous naturalists board the Beagle to assist him in completing his famous work. Players study animals, conduct surveys, publish findings, and develop theories, aiming to score more points than their competitors and demonstrate their significant contributions to Darwin's research.

Marrakech is a strategic board game where players take on the roles of competing rug salespeople in the vibrant and bustling market of Marrakech. The aim is to outsmart your competitors through careful placement of carpets and savvy financial decisions.

The abstract game of Qwirkle unfolds with 108 wooden blocks, each featuring six different shapes in six distinct colors. Unlike traditional board games, there is no designated board; players utilize any available flat surface.

The Great Dalmuti is a light and engaging card game that revolves around players striving to improve their social status by being the first to discard all their cards. The game is a commercial adaptation of the traditional card game President, and it offers a fun, fast-paced experience.

Hive is a highly strategic two-player game that stands out for its versatility and unique gameplay mechanics, involving a variety of insect-themed pieces.

Blokus is an abstract strategy game known for its simple rules and deep strategic gameplay. It features colorful Tetris-shaped pieces that players aim to place on the board.

YINSH is a strategic abstract game that is part of the renowned GIPF series of games. It involves a clever combination of movement and flipping of markers on the board, with players aiming to align five markers of their own color. The unique aspect of YINSH is its balance between advancing towards victory and simultaneously weakening your position.

Forbidden Desert is a cooperative adventure game where players work together to recover a legendary flying machine from the ruins of an ancient desert city, while surviving extreme environmental challenges.