The 10 Best Gateway Board Games for Converting Non Gamers

Gateway games are meant to welcome new players into the hobby. They should introduce important game concepts while still providing actual strategic depth. They should play well with groups of mixed experience levels. Above all else, they should create lasting memories that make players want to come back for more.

Too many games marketed as gateway fall short of these goals. They’re too simplistic to remain interesting after more than a couple of plays. They’re still too complicated for actual new players to understand. Publishers brand passive games as “family-friendly” even when they take half an hour to explain the rules. Designers hollow-out heavier titles to create dumbed-down versions that remove the very thing that made you love the original game. True gateway games get excluded from conversations because hardcore hobbyists consider anything without economic engines and player elimination “too light”.

In reality, gateway games are neither shallow nor lacking complexity. They’re just as deep as their players make them. And they bring people into the hobby by making them smile, not scaring them with complicated rules.

Here are the 10 best gateway board games:

Why These Games?

The Great Gateway Debate

As we put together this list of top gateway games, the Meeple Power staff got into many disagreements over what makes a game accessible. William is a firm believer that theme is the most important factor. He’ll argue you until sunrise about how gateway games work best with strong themes that help new players connect with the game’s fiction before they understand the mechanics. Janet thinks teachability is king. If you can’t teach it quickly, then no one will want to learn how to play. Evelyn would have this list full of strategic gems that reinforce the mechanical principles at play. Nicholas cares about scalability above all else. Gateway games should work just as well with 2 players as they do with the max, and with groups of wildly varying experience levels. Billy thinks that social interaction is required in gateway games. There should always be conversation and shared feelings of excitement.

Eventually, we compromised and decided that gateway games require several key criteria. They must be teachable to someone who has never played a modern board game within 10 minutes. They should have strategic decisions worth making that don’t require deep rules knowledge to parse. Gateway games must create amazing moments that leave players begging for another round. Finally, they should still be fun after you’ve played them dozens of times and continue to welcome new players.

Why Most Gateway Games Fail (And Why These Don’t)

Most gateway games fail because the gatekeep. Companies market shallow games with almost no player agency as easy to play and learn. The mechanics are simple to perform but don’t leave players with any interesting choices. They assume that new or casual players just want mindless games that don’t challenge them.

The gateway games on this list don’t sell out because they understand what makes a game accessible. Each title clearly communicates important decisions and allows players to make them on the first turn. The mechanics they use serve the feelings they want to create. When you place a tile in Azul, you’re not just following a game rule – you’re making a tactical decision about completing patterns and managing resources. When you place a meeple in Carcassonne, you’re not just building a map – you’re doing math to optimise your future scoring potential.

They also know that being gateway doesn’t mean having no depth. Each game on this list has been played and loved by the Meeple Power staff thousands of times, and they all reward deeper levels of play. But they still work just fine as gateway because they never punish new players for not playing optimally. Ticket to Ride will never not be the game of collecting train cards and claiming routes. But as you get better, you’ll start to see route efficiency, destination management, and blocking as important factors. These games still exist for newcomers to experience, and they’re just as fun as you get better at them.

Who This List Is For

There are a lot of audiences this list can help. If you’re new to modern board gaming and don’t know where to start, these games are great entry points. If you play with mixed groups, everyone at your table will have a good time because these games scale superbly between new and experienced players. If you’re looking to build your library, these games will always be there for you when you need to teach someone the joys of board gaming.

We especially tried to focus on games that new players will come back to even after they discover heavier games. It’s very common for people to buy gateway games, play them a couple of times with guests or family, then replace them with something deeper for their collection. Every game on this list gives players more to discover as they get better without alienating casual players.

What To Look For

We talk about several factors at play with each game on this list. How long does it take to teach? Are there meaningful strategic decisions that improve the more you play? Will everyone at your table be engaged during each game? Does it play just as well with 2 as it does with 6? How long does it take to set up and break down? Are you even going to want to play it? Does the theme add to your experience or is it just window dressing? When you read our recommendations, keep these questions in mind. They’ll help you find your new favourite game.

Also, please enjoy our futile attempts to quantify and justify why each of these games are the absolute best.

1. Ticket to Ride (2004)

Spiel des Jahres Winner	2004
Copies Sold Worldwide	Over 8 million
Franchise Expansions	15+ different maps released
Digital Platform Success	Available on 10+ platforms

Ticket to Ride is a route-building game where players collect sets of train cards matching the colours of routes they claim on a map of North America. On your turn, you draw cards from the deck, claim a route by discarding a set of cards from your hand, or draw destination tickets which give you point goals to reach. The game ends when someone has two or fewer trains left in their supply, at which point final scoring occurs for incomplete destination tickets, longest continuous path, and remaining destination tickets.

What makes Ticket to Ride magical is that it takes a simple mechanism of card collecting and turns it into nail-biting strategy. Every decision on your turn is obvious, but still carries weight. Do you draw more cards towards routes you want in the future? Claim an available route and prevent others from taking it? Draw a destination ticket and hope you can complete it for bonus points? Ticket to Ride creates player tension by limiting the number of trains. Everyone can see the routes you want and decide whether to let you have them. Destination tickets create secret information and forward planning that engage more experienced players without intimidating new ones.

The theme fits seamlessly with the mechanics. Nobody needs to understand the rules of railroads to understand that you’re trying to connect cities by laying down tracks. The board itself provides a natural spatial reasoning challenge as you figure out how to make the most efficient routes. Even drawing train cards feels thematically appropriate because you use those cards to claim coloured train routes. When someone denies you access to Seattle, it feels authentic to the theme.

Is Ticket to Ride still good? Of course it is. The mechanisms are just as beautiful as they were 18 years ago, and the luck forces everyone to experience completely different games.

[Janet’s Analysis of Why Train Routes Create Perfect Gateway Tension →]

2. Catan (1995)

Global Sales	Over 32 million copies
Tournament Players	World Championship since 1999
Cultural Recognition	Featured in mainstream media
Expansion Ecosystem	30+ expansions and variants

With Catan, players build settlements and cities while gathering resources needed to expand across a modular island. Whenever players receive resource cards that match the numbers rolled by two dice, they collect that resource from the corresponding terrain tiles. Players spend those resources to claim more settlement and city locations as the game progresses, earning points for their buildings as well as longer roads and armies.

The key to Catan is the player-driven market created by the trading phase. Nearly every gateway game is lighter on player interaction, but Catan requires you to talk to your opponents. New players can sit at the table and just roll with whatever trades others offer them. Experienced players will be optimizing when to trade specific resources and when to hold out for maximum advantage. The robber also introduces direct player interaction by allowing you to block resource production and make deals over who gets moved next.

Catan excels as a gateway game because every mechanism has been iterated on at least a dozen times since it’s release. Rolling dice and collecting resources feels straightforward, but where you place those new settlements is a decision with lasting impact. Trading resources is simple, but players must evaluate their market value, negotiate with others, and manage relationships. Settling and building is intuitive, but players must calculate spatial scoring opportunities when deciding where to go.

With random player starting positions, unique tile layouts, and dice rolling, Catan has incredible replayability. Even with experienced players around the table, any game of Catan can be massively swingy based on luck of the roll.

Is Catan still good? Yeah. The game plays almost exactly as it did in 1995. The only real complaint is that some runs can be wholly decided by the dice.

[Does Modern Catan Hold Up? →]

3. Azul (2017)

Spiel des Jahres Winner	2018
BoardGameGeek Rating	Top 100 all-time
Series Success	3 standalone sequels released
Production Quality	Premium resin tiles standard

Azul is an abstract game of pattern making disguised as a tile laying puzzle. Players take turns drafting colored tiles from long rows representing warehouses of available materials. After selecting a tile, players place it onto their player board in one of several rows, then slide all the tiles above down to fill the gap. Goal scored by creating full horizontal rows which are then transferred to your scoring board.

One of the best things about Azul is how every decision on a player’s turn feels impactful. Do you take tiles from the end of the row, possibly leaving your opponent with an amazing set of colours? Do you take a risk and grab three instead of two, setting yourself up for awesome patterns or damaging tiles? Azul’s drafting mechanic forces you to take every tile of one colour when you select from the row. This creates tons of tension as you don’t know if your opponent is giving you what you want or setting you up to take a bunch of ugly tiles.

Azul is about creating patterns. The theme of creating mosaic art from beautiful tiles plays so well with the game’s mechanisms. Each player’s board provides immediate feedback by telling you how close you are to scoring rows as well as preventing ugly scoring deductions.

Azul works as a gateway game for so many reasons. The rules are easy to teach and learn, but coming up with the most efficient placement to create scoring rows takes some real thought. There is tons of player interaction because everyone can see what you’re doing. When someone messes up your beautiful wall, you know they’re doing it on purpose.

Is Azul still good? Hell yea! Every decision is tough, and there are still so many incredible patterns to make.

[Are We Overlooking Azul? →]

4. Carcassonne (2000)

Spiel des Jahres Winner	2001
Expansion Count	50+ official expansions
Tournament Circuit	World Championship annually
Digital Success	Multiple platform releases

Carcassonne is a tile placement game with an ingenious area control mechanism. Players draw tiles which they then lay down to expand the game board. After playing a tile, you can optionally place one of your followers on roads, cities, cloisters, or fields to claim those features. Followers also called Meeples, score points at the end of the game for each completed feature they’ve claimed.

Drawing tiles means that everyone is forced to play with perfect information. You know what tiles exist in the supply, allowing for some interesting teamwork and sabotage. But you don’t know what order tiles will be drawn. Carcassonne forces players to manage their meeples because they are limited. When to place your followers on the board and when to hold back is a question that has plagued Carcassonne players since 2000.

Carcassonne is a gateway classic because it works in layers. The early game is extremely easy to understand; players are focused on simply building the landscape. But as that landscape gets more complex, players have to think about how they approach scoring.

One of the best parts of Carcassonne is its theme. Player’s take turns drawing and building the medieval French countryside. Roads connect, cities expand, and monasteries nestle in farmers’ fields. Everytime you place a tile you get that feeling of actively developing the land around you. The player boards are also fantastic at illustrating how far ahead or behind you are.

Does Carcassonne still hold up? Without a doubt. It remains one of the easiest games to teach new players and still offers deep strategy.

[Has Carcassonne Bottomed Out? →]

5. Sushi Go! (2013)

Card Drafting Innovation	Made drafting accessible
Teaching Time	Under 5 minutes
Expansion Success	Sushi Go Party! released
Art Appeal	Kawaii style universally loved

Pick the cards you want then pass the rest! That’s the whole rulebook for Sushi Go!. Drafting is one of the purest forms of game mechanics. Every player makes a choice at the same time, causing waves of tension and excitement as everyone reveals their selections. With Sushi Go!, no one knows what anyone else is passing them until that group reveal.

Each card type in Sushi Go! has different strategic implications. Tempura requires sets to score, giving players huge pressure to match on the first turn. Sashimi requires sets of three, leading to massive comebacks on the last round. Chopsticks allow you to pick two cards if you have them, leading to interesting decisions about whether you want to risk your extra card to grab what you wanted.

Sushi Go! is such a great gateway game because it teaches players how to draft without being overly complicated. The theme of gathering your favorite sushi items from an itemised menu is straightforward. Ordering sushi is an experience we can all relate to, making for some great contest over who gets the most sashimi.

Is Sushi Go still good? Of course! Drafting never gets old, and there will always be something happening on every turn.

[Janet’s Exploration of How Sushi Go! Made Drafting Universally Accessible →]

6. Kingdomino (2016)

Spiel des Jahres Winner	2017
Designer Recognition	Bruno Cathala masterpiece
Play Time Efficiency	Genuine 20-minute games
Series Growth	Multiple themed variants

Players take turns selecting a domino tile featuring two different landscapes. Those lands will be added to their players’ 5×5 grid, connecting to other tiles already played to their domain. At the end of the game, players score points by multiplying the number of lands in any given region by the number of crowns that area contains.

Kingdomino is brilliant because your turn order determines your strategy. Every tile is numbered for the order they appear in each round. The highest numbers have more crown tiles, but you have to take that domino last next turn. Do you risk taking that awesome domino now and suffer through picking last during your next trip around the kingdom? Or do you play it safe and ensure you’re always making the first selection?

Players must think spatially to score well in Kingdomino. Every tile you play must be touching another tile of the same landscape type. This restriction forces you to play around the spaces your opponents open up. Additionally, the 5×5 scoring grid forces you to be efficient with how you fill up your kingdom.

Kingdomino teaches players spatial awareness without feeling like “edutainment”. Connecting tiles of the same type to build your kingdom feels intuitive. The domino draft replicates the feel of traditional domino games we are all familiar with. Scoring your kingdom at the end of the game allows for some interesting bets on whether you can fill up that last empty spot.

Kingdomino still plays great because it doesn’t have that much depth. You will get better at spotting the efficient shapes to fill your kingdom, but there isn’t much more to it.

[Janet’s Analysis of How Kingdomino Perfected Gateway Spatial Puzzles →]

7. Dixit (2008)

Spiel des Jahres Winner	2010
Cultural Impact	Redefined party games
Art Innovation	Abstract art as gameplay
Expansion Library	12 official expansions

Love wordplay? Dixit challenges players to interpret creative clues given by the storyteller. After giving their clue, all players simultaneously select one of their cards they feel best matches that clue. Everyone then reveals their cards and scores based on who was able to fool people into picking their card.

Dixit gets super tricky because you never know how literal people will take your clues. Do you give super specific clues that only one person can get? Or do you broad yourself open to widespread interpretation? Dixit has simple mechanics, but each round you play challenges you to read the group psychology of your friends.

Speaking of psychology, Dixit’s artwork is what lets this game stand the test of time. Every card shows abstract art that means something different to each person viewing it. The art style is so surreal and dreamlike that no one feels left out because they lack cultural knowledge.

Since there is no real “right” answer, Dixit works as a gateway game. Anyone can look at a card and think of something that it makes them think of. There are no discussion requirements to play, meaning even shy people can just pick cards that they feel match the clue. Also, there’s something super satisfying about being the storyteller and watching everyone guess at your card.

Is Dixit still good? One of the best things about Dixit is that it keeps getting new expansions with art from fantastic artists all over the world.

[Nicholas’s Deep Dive Into How Dixit Made Art Into Gameplay →]

8. Camel Up (2014)

Spiel des Jahres Winner	2014
Table Presence	3D pyramid dice dispenser
Player Scalability	Works with 2-8 players
Excitement Generation	Creates shouting matches

Camel Up is a literal betting game where you place bets on where you think those greedy camels will finish. Players move around a track with one die each, and whenever that die finishes on a space, players stack their camel meeples on top of each other. Bonus tiles get triggered when certain camels land on designated spots, making camel movement far more interesting than just rolling dice.

Stacking camels is what makes Camel Up so fun. Whenever a camel lands on an occupied space, it stacks vertically on top of the other camel meeple(s). The heavy stack of camels then all move together when one of them lands on a future space. This creates massive swings in momentum because one roll can drastically change the board state.

There’s also deep strategy in deciding where to place your bets. Do you play it safe and guarantee yourself some winnings? Or do you go all-in on that longshot and pray to the camel god that you win big? Camel Up’s betting system allows for both conservative and aggressive playstyles to win the game.

Camel Up is a gateway game because betting and camel races are easy to understand. Once you get the rules down, there isn’t anything else to teach. Sure, there is some interesting strategy when placing your bets, but at its core everyone is just rolling dice and watching those camels climb.

Is Camel Up still good? Buckwild is still one of the funniest board games out there.

[Janet’s Analysis of How Camel Up Perfected Controlled Chaos →]

9. The Quest for El Dorado (2017)

Designer Pedigree	Reiner Knizia design
Gateway Innovation	Racing meets deckbuilding
Modular Design	Multiple map configurations
Accessibility Success	Simplest deckbuilding entry

The Quest for El Dorado is essentially a lighter version of Monopoly on rails. Players traverse across treacherous maps purchased by spending resources collected from playing cards. Each player has a personal board which they move their meeple across, making attempts to reach El Dorado before anyone else.

Deckbuilding has long been one of the most complicated game mechanics for new players to understand. El Dorado manages to teach players about resource management and building a more powerful deck without overwhelming them. Basic cards allow players to move across a single terrain type. As the game progresses, players unlock stronger cards with multiple movement abilities and special actions.

Racing games work well with new players because there is no “losing”. Everyone moves towards the victory condition at the same pace. You’re either winning or towards winning. Quest for El Dorado provides brilliant player engagement by allowing you to choose your own routes and secrets. Sure, you want to get to El Dorado fast, but there are other ways to score points on these maps.

Will it still hold up? Quest for El Dorado has the easiest deckbuilding mechanics I’ve ever seen. It still works great, and there are multiple maps to play with providing tremendous replayability.

[Janet’s Analysis of How Knizia Made Deckbuilding Finally Accessible →]

10. Photosynthesis (2017)

Thematic Innovation	Trees competing for sunlight
Educational Value	Teaches spatial thinking
3D Component Quality	Cardboard trees with presence
Strategic Depth	Shadow calculation complexity

In Photosynthesis, each player takes turns growing trees which allow them to collect sunlight points. The board tracks where in the sky the sun is currently located. Whenever your tree dies by losing it’s sunlight, you score points by counting how many branches it grew during it’s life.

Each round, players will have to do math to figure out where shadows fall on the board. Every tree casts a shadow directly away from the current position of the sun. The longer your tree, the further it’s shadow will stretch. That means each turn you need to think about not only where you can place your tree, but how long it should grow.

Once your tree dies, you’ll need to do more math to determine where it should go on the board. You want to place your tree in a spot that maximizes sunlight but minimizes shadow. Remember how we said each tree casts a shadow? Well those shadows are physical tokens that take up space on the board.

Photosynthesis teaches players spatial reasoning in a super thematic way. Trees block each other’s sunlight, and it is only due to sunlight that they grow. Photosynthesis requires you to do some hefty calculus as you play, making it a struggle to teach to new gamers.

Photosynthesis is a beast to set up but it is so worth it. The 3D trees look incredible and filling up that skyline feels amazing!

[William’s Deep Dive Into How Photosynthesis Made Spatial Thinking Beautiful →]

Games That Made The Cut But We’re Still Fighting About

Splendor. Love Letter. Pandemic. Wingspan. Just One. Codenames. Marvel Batman. Skimming down this list makes me think of how many other games could have made this list. Splendor is such a fantastic introduction to engine building, but almost feels like a stepping stone. King of Tokyo has that perfect dice rolling party game feel, but kills players so someone is always watching. Modern Art has some of the best gateway mechanics.

We know there are other games out there that many of you will disagree should be on this list. Please let us know your favorites in the comments below. Guaranteed at least two of us will give your suggestions a hard refute before accepting your insightful commentary.