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 the Dead Cells or even the Call of Duty adaptation, 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?
There are already a few examples of basically translating the board game into a digital format 1:1 such as with Everdell, Gloomhaven, or Root, 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.
7 Kingdom Death: Monster
First up is sort of a 'niche' pick, as Kingdom Death: Monster is 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: Monster is a game set in an incredibly dark world filled with all sorts of terrifying monsters, mysteries, and dark depravity. In this 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: Monster would 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.
6 Betrayal At House On The Hill
Betrayal at House on the Hill honestly already has a lot of video games that fill a similar niche such as Dead 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).
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, BaHonH as 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.
5 5-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 Dungeon has a bit of Munchkin, a bit of Speed, 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 the Dead Rising games. In any case, as a hypothetical video game, 5-Minute Dungeon could 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 like Mario Party.
4 Cthulhu: Death May Die
Cthulhu: Death May Die, as its name implies, is a game that heavily incorporates elements of the 'old gods' fictional mythology from 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.
If Cthulhu: Death May Die was 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 roguelike with tabletop gameplay elements integrated throughout. And luckily, the hypothetical developers of this game could easily reference something like Eternal Darkness, since that game is so well known for nailing the eldritch horror atmosphere.
3 Townsfolk Tussle
Much like how Cuphead is essentially a boss battle simulator like Dark Souls but more distilled, Townsfolk Tussle is like Kingdom Death: Monster but without all the extra fluff. Whereas a KDM campaign can take just as long as a standard Dungeon and Dragons campaign in some instances, Townsfolk Tussle is usually only played in single session runs.
And, if it were made into a video game, it could almost literally work as Cuphead DLC. Both Cuphead and Townsfolk Tussle are obviously homaging classic 'rubber hose' style cartoons and animation. Though, it should be said that Townsfolk Tussle has more going on mechanically than one might expect such as the cooperative elements, secret objectives, upgradable cards/items, and more.
2 Vagrantsong
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, and Vagrantsong is 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.
In Vagrantsong, 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 about Vagrantsong, 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.
1 Sleeping Gods
For the final inclusion, let's talk about another campaign-based board game, Sleeping Gods. Sleeping Gods is 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 stats as these characters explore unfamiliar waters Grand Line-style in 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 to Faster than Light or Barotrauma or it could work more as an RPG with players essentially controlling multiple small 'parties' of characters to explore each island for Totems.