The Hustle

The Hustle

The Hustle is an open-world board game where you can go anywhere - anywhere - to build your fortune from the bottom up.

  • Go Left, Go Right, Do Whatever - winners don’t respect board game conventions. Winners cut through the middle of the board and tell Candyland to shove it.

  • Meddle with Forces Beyond Your Ken - Every round, players vote to change one rule about the game. Adjust your strategy to succeed, or get left in the dust!

  • Don’t call it “Bribery!" - That’s the invisible hand of the free market shoving $100 into your jeans.

  • Ruin Real-Life Friendships - Cut the dead weight from your social group in classic board-game style!

  • Build a Legacy - Will you be remembered a Miser? A Titan of Industry? A Peasant? Every smart move is another scene in your Oscar-winning biopic, and every dumb move is another shovelful of dirt in your stupid, stupid, anonymous grave.


Read More: Best Board Game 2D Games.


The Hustle on Steam

Hex Slayer

Hex Slayer

Fun and challenging. What seems like a simple basic strategy game gets satisfyingly complex pretty quickly without becoming overwhelming with too much going.

Real player with 8.7 hrs in game


Read More: Best Board Game Strategy Games.


First impressions are good.

The game starts very simply, but the complexity increases pretty quickly.

The core of the game is a hex map, with little towns. Towns gain income by owning the hexes adjacent to them. This can be bumped up by building a tower in one of those, though this is not something you can do right away.

You can build units, and they increase in strength as you combine them. They have an upkeep cost however, and you not only have to keep enough money to support them, but they are supported by the town that built them, so you have to keep a supply line open as well.

Real player with 5.5 hrs in game

Hex Slayer on Steam

Jgsw

Jgsw

This is genuinely the best jigsaw program I’ve had the pleasure to use. I’ve been searching for a long time for a jigsaw puzzle program that has it all: custom jigsaws, high piece counts, multiplayer puzzling, and a single up-front price, and after all this time, I found JGSW. While there are a few small bugs having to do with physics (the pieces have physics!) over a network, just about everything else is perfect. Very well done, Sean!

Real player with 73.0 hrs in game


Read More: Best Board Game Casual Games.


This is the best iteration of a puzzle game I’ve played yet. Plus it lets you use whatever image you want with no issues! The pieces feel pretty darn solid to rotate and place and move. Every once in a while the puzzle will get overexcited about a particularly important snap and “bounce” up, but usually the piece physics are just fine. More people need to try this one, honestly. No regrets. And not only is it fun on your own, but it has multiplayer!

TL;DR: If you love doing jigsaw puzzles and want a digital version, it’s this one. You won’t be disappointed.

Real player with 50.1 hrs in game

Jgsw on Steam

Minestrife

Minestrife

A fun little Minesweeper version with some extra modes available. Pros are that it’s lightweight plus has multimine and ‘clear the falling line’ modes. Cons are a faulty screen rescaling, obtuse multimine flagging with mouse controls, and a lack of middle click (‘smart select’). The dev probably thought it wouldn’t work with the multimine mode since flags are arbitrary

At only a buck during sales I’d say it’s a nice step up over the minesweeper that used to come with your computer

Real player with 25.5 hrs in game

edit: the game got patched quite a bit, so rewrote the review and turned it into a recommendation.

minestrife is a souped-up version of the original minesweeper. figure out where the mines are based on number clues, right click to mark as dangerous or potentially dangerous, left click to reveal. there’s a timer (can’t hide it) and a bomb counter, as expected, plus the following quality of life improvements: rebindable controls, zoom in/out and right click to move bigger levels around, hotkeys to open the 4 corners, unlimited hints (pressing it over a square reveals its contents, bomb or nothing), and there’s a compass, pointing to unrevealed and unflagged tiles, which can be handy on bigger boards.

Real player with 2.1 hrs in game

Minestrife on Steam

Puzlkind Jigsaw Puzzles

Puzlkind Jigsaw Puzzles

Update(?): They have stopped updating the counter/leaderboard since July 2021.

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I love puzzles, especially 5000pc. Although this table top mod’s maximum pc is 2000, it is enough to occupy your time and mind like doing a real puzzle.

This game is created by a collaboration of 3 persons in a community where they meet up for Pie and Puzzle Sunday : ) before the the 2019 Pandemic.

+Strong Positives(Great choice of Software) :

Those who have tried ‘playing’ Tabletop/board games on Steam would know that, those ‘games’ do not come with instructions and tutorial, hence most of the time 2 players would be confused and just be flipping or throwing chips and cards around the board as there is no program to set the rules for where the chess pieces can go or cannot go.

Real player with 948.9 hrs in game

If you like puzzles then you’ll like this game. Very relaxing to sit and do this in the evening with my glass of wine.

Real player with 110.0 hrs in game

Puzlkind Jigsaw Puzzles on Steam

Sixteen

Sixteen

Sixteen is a small casual indie puzzle game similar to a vintage board-game from 1987.

Organize the fruits into groups based of what type of fruit. Increased difficulty provides more fruits as well as a larger area to solve.

Features

Difficulty: Choose between three difficulties.

  • Small - A 4x4 grid to get a feel for how the game works.

  • Medium (unlockable) - Wider 6x4 grid that makes it a bit more interesting.

  • Large (unlockable) - An 6x6 grid that can be pretty challenging.

Game Modes: There a two game modes to choose from.

  • Group - Put the same kind of fruits into groups to win the game.

  • Sorted (unlockable) - Not only put the fruits in groups, also need to put them in the correct order and place.

Steam Features

  • Stats: Your progress will be saved and can be used for unlocking higher difficulties and new game modes.

  • Achievements: Provides 15 achievements. All should be able to be obtained after a few hours of play-through.

  • Leaderboards: Your best combination of Time and Moves on specific Game Mode and Difficulty can be uploaded and compared with others.

Graphics

  • DirectX Real-Time Ray Tracing: Improves the quality of the Shadows, Reflections and Ambient light (Requires a compatible Graphics Card.)

  • Nvidia Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS): Can be used to improve performance, especially when using Real-Time Ray Tracing (Requires a compatible Graphics Card.)

  • High Dynamic Range (HDR): Makes details ‘pop’ by adjusting the brightness and contrast (beta) (Requires HDR compatible monitor.)

Sixteen on Steam

18Korea

18Korea

You should know what you are getting with the 18xx games. This is pretty good, both as a client and as an entry in the family of games, including elements that are questionable if you are a purist but are pretty nice if you like your board games to have replayability and some minimum degree of asymmetry, and I am referring to the pre-game draft of assets cards. Also the theme is great and enriched by the Korean war elements.

Buyers beware: there is NO single-player or versus-AI mode. This is a multiplayer only game. As it should be.

Real player with 4.6 hrs in game

As an avid 18xx fan, I was very hopeful for this title. I’ve only played through a 2 player local multiplayer game(vs myself) to get a feel for the rule set and interface. This rule set is more of the “running good companies” style of 18xx vs the Stock manipulation style of game. All train routes are autocalculated which is a huge time saver over the tabletop games, interface was relatively simple to figure out.

This game has a very unique(as far as my exposure to 18xx which is pretty extensive) mechanic with half of the map getting wiped out once you advance to Era 3(brown tiles). This is the Korean war. Map gets cut at the DMZ(which you can traverse before it happens), North becomes unavailable and all cities in the South are wiped out and have to be rebuilt. I understand it works for a smaller map, but not sure how I feel about it after only one play through but its intriguing for planning and strategy.

Real player with 2.0 hrs in game

18Korea on Steam

Chess’Extra

Chess’Extra

Tried it out with a friend of mine, it isn’t very well made but gets the job done.

UI could use improvement, sounds could be introduced properly.

It’s free, but it’s a mixed bag. Leaving as “Not Recommended” since there are better versions for free or paid on Steam and on the Web.

Real player with 14.3 hrs in game

_It’s Chess but with something a little Extra!

Haha! You see what I did there?_

Real player with 10.9 hrs in game

Chess'Extra on Steam

Let’s Learn Janggi (Korean Chess)

Let’s Learn Janggi (Korean Chess)

it was a fun game to try out i suck so bad at it but ill learn in time :)

Real player with 0.5 hrs in game

I have a book that details many Chess variants including this one. Some of the moves and rules differ somewhat from what I found in other sources. Are multiple variants of this game actively played in Korea? The program, as it is, is good for those just getting introduced to Korean Chess. It is not a program that will satisfy stronger players.

Real player with 0.4 hrs in game

Let's Learn Janggi (Korean Chess) on Steam

Pavlov’s House

Pavlov’s House

This game inspired me to purchase the physical board game on which it’s a digital adaptation of, and I’m glad I did. Having the board in front of me, with all the high quality components that are easier to read, and the big map, makes the game more enjoyable. Plus, you actually roll all the dice results, which is more exciting than watching random numbers appear on the screen. But I don’t want to take away any of the game’s digital little clone excellence. It plays the game according to the rules, is fast to play and, most importantly, introduced me to the Valiant Defense series by David Thompson. The digital version of Castle Itter is very good as well. Both are some of the best solo war game adaptations out there.

Real player with 104.2 hrs in game

I have been interested in this board game for quite some time but the cheapest copy I can find in the UK is £60. This digital version is only £6.19 at the time of writing and seems to be a very good implementation of the board game. It’s also hugely entertaining and has great replay value as the random card draw system makes it play differently every time. To say this game is tense would be an understatement! You are constantly reacting to the next threat, whether it’s delivering vital supplies to the heroic defenders of Pavlov’s House, buttressing walls against German artillery and tank shells, or forming machine gun and antitank teams to whittle away at the relentless German onslaught. Every game goes down to the wire and I’ve only achieved a major victory once. Highly recommended.

Real player with 76.0 hrs in game

Pavlov's House on Steam