Snakes of Wrath

How it works: A tile-laying game that's not Dominoes and doesn't require math or multiples of five? We're in. The plan is to play the longest connected snakes on the board— but watch out: your opponent is trying to stab and steal your progress. The winner is the first to 13 segments of connected snake, but that's not as easy as it sounds.

Why it's clever: All the tiles are double sided, and there are actions that can sever or flip entire chains of snakes to an opposing color. The tiles also stack, so when your snake is cut, you can play a new time on top to heal the snake and get your points back. The whole thing is pretty easy to learn and feels like it's gonna take a long while to master.

This was one we funded on Kickstarter a while back, but it's now available in general release! It's from West Coast Inc, a spinoff of The Young Jerks (a name you probably recognize if you're a design wonk).

Price: $50