The majority of polyomino games include placing tiles or “tetris” type pieces on personal player boards, but occasionally this also includes some type of shared board.

Board Game Bandit has rounded up our favourite Polyomino Games and ranked them below. BUT, with so many great picks to choose from, we couldn't start without a couple  honorable mentions of Blokus and Cutterland.

Blokus is one of the most popular and long-standing polyomino games, having just turned 20 years old. It's a great family game with tetris-like pieces on a shared board. Cutterland, is a great strategy game where players get to cut up the cards, yes, actually cut them up while competing to make your own kingdom.

10. Cottage Garden

Plant flower tiles in Cottage Garden. Designed by popular board game creator Uwe Rosenberg, who is well known for his many Polyomino games. Cottage Garden is also the first part of Uwe Rosenberg’s puzzle trilogy, followed by Indian Summer and Spring Meadow.

In Cottage Garden, you work 2 beds with an array of flowers. When no unplanted box is shown on a bed, you have finished it, you then tally your points and switch it with a fresh, unplanted bed. You earn points for all visible plant pots and planting bells.

Players choose numerous tiles of flower beds from a central market grid, depending on the location of the "gardener", placing them on one of their 2 personal garden boards. Each board has numerous garden elements worth points when not planted over, which are scored on two different tracks when a garden is completed. Crossing over a line on each track gives bonus tokens that may fill in empty spaces or provide a greater selection of the flower bed tiles. When a garden is completed, you get a new one. Once a gardener finishes their 5th lap around the market, the game starts its final round.

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9. Project L

Project L is a great light weight abstract strategy game. It’s quick paced with tile-matching of triple-layer 3D puzzles and charming acrylic pieces. Challenge your friends to a game of simple design but sophisticated gameplay that creates a lasting impression!

The heart of the game lies in applying your pieces to complete puzzles. Beginning with 2 basic pieces, you have 3 actions each turn to build a powerful engine. With more pieces of various types, you can efficiently finish even the most challenging puzzles. The puzzles you finish earn you points or new pieces to advance your engine.

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8. Tiny Towns

In Tiny Towns, you are the mayor of a tiny town located in the forest where the smaller creatures of the woods have formed a civilization hidden away from predators. This new land is small with scarce resources, so you take what you can get and never say no to building materials. Expertly plan and erect a flourishing town, and don't let it fill up with unnecessary resources! Whoever develops the best thriving tiny town wins!

The town is represented by a 4x4 grid where players place resource cubes in particular layouts to erect buildings. Each building earns victory points in a distinctive way. When no player can place additional resources or erect any buildings, the game finishes, with all squares missing a building being -1 VP.

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7. Silver & Gold

The game Silver & Gold blends simple rules, swift action, luck, and planning as players strive to complete multiple treasure maps. The maps are printed on wipeable cards with each having unique designs and game bonuses.

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6. The Isle of Cats

In the game The Isle of Cats, players are citizens of Squalls End on a rescue mission to The Isle of Cats where you need to rescue as many cats as possible prior to the evil Lord Vesh ‘s arrival. Each cat is characterized by a unique tile and belongs to a family, you must discover a way to make them all fit in your boat while ensuring families stay together.

Each lesson you accumulate provides another personal way of earning points, and 38 unique lessons are available. Complete lessons, fill your boat, and keep cat families together to earn points, the player with the most after 5 rounds wins.

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5. Era: Medieval Age

In Era: Medieval Age, dice represent separate classes of medieval society as players try to build the most thriving city. The "build" comes into play as players physically construct their cities on their boards by using beautifully modeled 3D components like walls, keeps, farms, and other structures.

Era: Medieval Age is made more challenging as players interact with each other with extortion, scorched earth, and disease!

Era stands as the first of a new series of standalone roll-and-build games from eggertspiele and Matt Leacock!

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4. Copenhagen

In Copenhagen, players design new façades for the colorful houses along the water in the famous "Nyhavn" (New Harbor), ensuring they fit seamlessly into the beautiful harbor setting. By using the cards on displays, players get the corresponding façade tiles, which they use to revamp their homes. Overbuilding certain spaces and floors offers them further skills for the rest of the game. Floors that consist of a pure window front are especially rewarding and bring many points.

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3. Bärenpark

Up to 2,000 pounds and over 10” tall, the bear is thought to be the largest and heaviest terrestrial carnivore in the world. Of course, there is not just one type of bear, there are plenty that differ from each other in several aspects. For example, the Kodiak weighs about 2,000 lbs. The polar bear around 1,100 lbs., but still gets much larger than the Kodiak bear, being up to 11 ft. in height!

Bärenpark takes players into the world of bears, challenging you to create your own bear park. Will you create an additional polar bear enclosure or perhaps a koala house? The park visitors will definitely get hungry, so build places to eat! Just ensure you get the next building permit and use the land sensibly!

Players erect their own bear park, trying to make it as magnificent as possible, while using every square meter possible. The park is made by joining tiles onto a grid, with players scoring for outdoor areas, animal houses, completed construction, and others. Cover icons to receive new tiles and park sections. The game finishes when one player has finished expanding their park, then players add their points to see who has won.

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2. Patchwork

The popular two players game by Uwe Rosenberg has players competing to create the most aesthetic quilt on a personal 9x9 board. Play starts with laying out the patches randomly in a circle. Each player gets 5 buttons which are the currency/points in the game.

Each turn a player purchases one of the three patches clockwise of the spool (place marking) or passes. Buying a patch costs the buttons shown. You then move the spool to that patch's spot in the circle, and add the patch to your board, then advance your token on the time track a number of spaces equal to the time indicated on the patch. If your time token is behind or on top of the other player's token, you take another turn; otherwise the opponent now takes a turn. If instead of buying a patch, you can choose to pass; you move your time token to the space in front of the opponent's time token, and take 1 button for each space you moved.

Patches also indicate 0-3 buttons on them, and when you move your token past a button on the time track, you earn "button income": which is the sum the number of buttons shown on your personal game board.

Additionally the time track shows 5 1x1 patches on it, Whoever passes a patch on the time track first, gets this patch and instantly places it on their board.

At the end of the game, each player scores 1 point per button in his possession, while loosing 2 points for each empty square on their board.

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1. New York Zoo

New York Zoo is Uwe Rosenberg’s newest game and a popular choice for all types of gamers.

Uwe Rosenberg is at his best in New York Zoo, with puzzling and animal breeding as you construct an animal park. In this new game, you build animal enclosures, breed new animals and raise their offspring. The gameplay is simple as you have only 2 turn options: Fit a new polyomino enclosure tile into your zoo area, or add new animals to populate your encounters. However, be sure to time your actions nicely since you want your zoo animals to trigger as many breedings as possible.

If you are a fan of Patchwork, New York Zoo is a definite must, with lots of similarities between the 2 games, but offering some interesting decisions to keep you coming back for more.

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