Tabletop Library
JOIN

Tabletop Library · Berkeley, CA

The World Tour

Board games got really, really good — and nobody told you. This is the way in: an orientation of five stops that teaches you the modern hobby, then six routes to wherever you’re headed.

5stops6routes30 games— every one on our shelvesAny order, any pace— this is a path, not a race
01

Orientation

5 stops

Five stops, each a little deeper than the last. Every one hands you a new idea you didn’t know board games could do.

1

Deck Building

Dominion

Dominion is an easy-to-learn, fast-playing game that introduces you to “deck building,” one of the most popular mechanics in board gaming. You start with a feeble little deck and buy better cards as you go — by the end, the deck you’re shuffling is a machine you built yourself. The whole genre is named after this game.

2

Social

Codenames

Codenames is a team word game you can teach in ninety seconds, and it introduces the social side of modern gaming — the whole room plays at once, and a single clever clue can swing everything. It’s the easiest proof that board games are something you do with people, not just near them.

3

Co-op

Pandemic

Pandemic introduces cooperative games: everyone at the table wins together or loses together. You’ll race outbreaks across a world map, plan out loud with your teammates, and feel a kind of shared tension most people have never gotten from a board game. It changes what you think games are for.

4

Engine Building

Wingspan

Wingspan is a gorgeous game about birds that introduces “engine building” — each card you play makes your future turns a little more powerful, until small combos snowball into something that hums. That snowball feeling is the engine (sorry) behind half of modern board gaming.

5

Worker Placement · The Final Stop

Agricola

Agricola is the classic of “worker placement”: you have far more things you want to do than workers to do them, and every spot you claim is one someone else can’t have. It’s the deepest game in orientation — a real euro, with real weight. Finish it and you’re ready for anything on our shelves.

Finish all five → the World Tour badge

Play them in any order, at any pace. Complete orientation and the badge is yours — and six routes open ahead.

02

Pick Your Route

6 routes

Orientation gave you a taste of everything. At least one of these should be calling you — and there’s no wrong answer, no order, and no rush.

Heavy

Brain burners. Big boxes, deep decisions, happily lost in thought.

  • Dune: ImperiumDeck building meets worker placement — the modern hybrid classic
  • Terraforming MarsMake a planet breathable, one card at a time
  • Ark NovaBuild a zoo. Burn your brain. Love every minute
  • Brass: BirminghamThe essential one — industrial-era perfection
  • Gaia Project ⚑The deepest game on our shelves
Finish the route → the Heavy Route badge

Competitive

High interaction. Mean, in the best possible way.

  • El GrandeThe area-control classic — every move shoves someone
  • Cosmic EncounterNegotiation, alliances, glorious betrayal
  • Blood RageVikings drafting their way to Valhalla
  • RootAsymmetric woodland war — four factions, four different games
  • Food Chain Magnate ⚑A ruthless business knife-fight. No dice, no luck, no mercy
Finish the route → the Competitive Route badge

Co-op

Win together, lose together, get better together.

  • The CrewCooperative trick-taking — fifty missions of silent teamwork
  • Sky TeamTwo people. One cockpit. Land the plane
  • Aeon's EndCo-op deck building against the void
  • Spirit Island ⚑The deep end of teamwork — be the island that fights back
Finish the route → the Co-op Route badge

Party

You, a room full of people, and perfectly engineered laughter.

  • WavelengthRead your friends' minds on a dial
  • MonikersCharades that gets funnier every round
  • DecryptoSay the code without saying the code
  • Blood on the Clocktower ⚑The social-deduction event — a whole evening of gorgeous lies
Finish the route → the Party Route badge

Story

Games that unfold over nights, not turns.

  • MysteriumA ghost, a table of psychics, a murder to solve
  • Sleeping GodsAn atlas of adventure — sail off the edge of the map
  • Pandemic LegacyThe campaign that changed board games. Permanent consequences
  • Gloomhaven ⚑The twenty-two-pound epic. A year of Thursdays, well spent
Finish the route → the Story Route badge

Card Games

The little-deck rabbit hole. Trick-taking is having a renaissance.

  • ScoutYour hand is your hand — you can't rearrange it
  • Cat in the BoxQuantum trick-taking. The card has no suit until you play it
  • Tichu ⚑The partnership classic — a lifetime game in one small box
Finish the route → the Card Games Route badge
Any order— within a section, play as you pleaseAny pace— this is a path, not a raceEvery finish earns a badge— orientation and each route

All seven World Tour badges live in the TTL Achievement Set — alongside every other badge the club offers.

Ask any staff member to pull your next game off the shelf — or to sit down and teach it.

The World Tour | Tabletop Library