While there’s no shortage of board games being released every year (or going on sale), and every couple of months it feels like some new video game to board game adaptation is announced, such as theDead Cellsoreven theCall of Dutyadaptation, but what about the other way around? How many board games out there would also work well as video games, given the proper amount of time, effort, and budget?
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There are already a few examples of basically translating the board game into a digital format 1:1 such as withEverdell,Gloomhaven, orRoot, but what about game adaptations that turn those board game mechanics into actual video game mechanics? Let’s take a look at some board games that would hypothetically translate to video games incredibly well.
7Kingdom Death: Monster
First up is sort of a ‘niche’ pick, asKingdom Death: Monsteris a tabletop/board game usually only known by those into model-building or those willing to shell out quite a bit of cash for their tabletop hobbies.Kingdom Death: Monsteris a game set in an incredibly dark world filled with all sorts of terrifying monsters, mysteries, and dark depravity. Inthis incredibly difficult board game, players take control of 4 survivors who wake up and suddenly have to fight for their lives against a giant monstrous lion with human-like hands.
From that first hunt, those survivors then slowly build a settlement, create new survivors, innovate things like the concepts of homes or a language, and steadily work their way up to fighting more and more of the horrors of this world. As a video game,Kingdom Death: Monsterwould easily work as a From Software-esque title but with more of a focus on steadily building up the hub area than other Soulsborne titles have up to now.
6Betrayal At House On The Hill
Betrayal at House on the Hillhonestly already has a lot of video games that fill a similar niche such asDead by Daylight,Friday the 13th,Hello Neighbor, and more. Essentially, it’s a board game where a group of players work together to explore and escape a home haunted by all sorts of different creatures and killers (who are also controlled by one of the players).
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If translated into a video game, it would take a while for the hypothetical developers to introduce all 50 playable ‘haunts’ from the board game, but as long as it captured the same gameplay loop of exploring a randomly generated haunted house filled with all sorts of different events, items, and omens, then players would likely stay loyal to the game as it steadily released more and more content. Plus, while survival and escape would still be the overall goals,BaHonHas a video game would have more unique moment-to-moment mechanics than most other video games in this same sub-genre,making it a great game to play overall.
55-Minute Dungeon
This next one is a board game that feels like it incorporates elements from many other board games into one big mixing pot and 5-Minute Dungeon is what popped out at the end. Mechanically,5-Minute Dungeonhas a bit ofMunchkin, a bit ofSpeed, and a lot of its unique mechanics as well. In this game, players work together to clear 5 different dungeons in 5-minutes, each while using their own unique characters, passive abilities, and hands of cards to work towards a common goal.
As a video game, integrating the 5-minute timer would be difficult, but would immediately make the game memorable if done successfully. This is because there aren’t many games out there that are brave enough to constantly force a timer on players outside of maybe theDead Risinggames. In any case, as a hypothetical video game,5-Minute Dungeoncould work well in a couple of different genres. It could work as a cooperative Beat Em' Up game, a single-player RPG/roguelike, or even just a simplified party game akin to something likeMario Party.
4Cthulhu: Death May Die
Cthulhu: Death May Die, as its name implies, is a game that heavily incorporateselements of the ‘old gods’ fictional mythologyfrom the works of H. P. Lovecraft. In it, players are literally attempting to beat these old gods, including Cthulhu, which is a rarity as most other media that tends to incorporate eldritch horror is usually just about surviving even an encounter with one of these extradimensional beings. And most of the time, the characters can’t even manage that and fall into madness just from looking at one of the old gods such as Cthulhu or Azathoth.
IfCthulhu: Death May Diewas translated into a video game, it would be one of the first to have a ‘madness’ or ‘insanity’ meter that players actively use for beneficial reasons. In most other games where players manage their sanity, the more it increases the worse off the player is. But, in this board game, it’s a balance between having just enough madness to use the benefits of it without going ‘completely’ mad. This board game could easily also work as a Soulslike-type game, as a standard RPG,or even a horror-style board game-type roguelikewith tabletop gameplay elements integrated throughout. And luckily, the hypothetical developers of this game could easily reference something likeEternal Darkness,since that game is so well known for nailing the eldritch horror atmosphere.
3Townsfolk Tussle
Much like howCupheadis essentially a boss battle simulator likeDark Soulsbut more distilled,Townsfolk Tussleis likeKingdom Death: Monsterbut without all the extra fluff. Whereas aKDMcampaign can take just as long as a standardDungeon and Dragonscampaign in some instances,Townsfolk Tussleis usually only played in single session runs.
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And, if it were made into a video game, it could almost literally work asCupheadDLC. BothCupheadandTownsfolk Tussleare obviously homaging classic ‘rubber hose’ style cartoons and animation. Though, it should be said thatTownsfolk Tusslehas more going on mechanically than one might expect such as the cooperative elements, secret objectives, upgradable cards/items, and more.
2Vagrantsong
Yet another dungeon-crawling, boss battling, type board game is next,Vagrantsong. A lot of these types of board games easily translate to a video game format, at least hypothetically, andVagrantsongis another example of that. This board game almost feels like it originally started as a dungeon-crawling RPG or roguelike and was then made into a board game instead of the other way around.
InVagrantsong, players work their way through the train cars of this haunted train called the Silver Ferryman, using their three coins (essentially Action Points) to move, investigate, or interact with the various ghosts (known as Haints) in the area. The unique part aboutVagrantsong, however, is that most of the time players aren’t progressing by ‘defeating’ Haints, they progress by uncovering more of the mystery of the Silver Ferryman and by using actions and words to remind Haints of their forgotten humanity. Sure, sometimes they take a few swings at the ghosts, but overall the focus is more on things other than fighting.
1Sleeping Gods
For the final inclusion, let’s talk about another campaign-based board game,Sleeping Gods.Sleeping Godsis a game meant for players to experience over multiple sessions and slowly figure out the most ‘optimal’ way to play it. In this game, players take control of 9 characters (split across a maximum of 4 players), all with different specialties and statsas these characters explore unfamiliar waters Grand Line-stylein their ship called the Manticore.
What makes this board game truly unique, other than the fact that the title of the game is pretty literal (the goal of the game is to actually wake up sleeping gods), is that all 9 characters are used in every campaign, meaning that everybody will be controlling multiple characters. As such, if this were ever translated into a video game, seeing how they would integrate this aspect of the physical game would be interesting. As a whole, this game could easily work as a mix of cooperatively running a ship similar toFaster than LightorBarotraumaor it could work more as an RPG with players essentially controlling multiple small ‘parties’ of characters to explore each island for Totems.
