Playing it very smart: Mensa has picked its ‘Select’ award-winning board games for 2019

High IQ-celebrating society Mensa has named the five clever-clogs board games awarded its coveted Mensa Select badge for 2019.

Since then, games such as Magic: The Gathering (1994), Apples to Apples (1999), Niagara (2005), Hive (2006), Dominion (2009), Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle (2017) and Azul (2018) have been among the five titles celebrated annually as being “original in concept, challenging and well designed”.

The winners are picked by 300 members of Mensa – which only accepts those who score in the top 2% of an intelligence test – during a 40-hour gaming marathon known as Mind Games.

There’s also Gizmos, the latest eye-popping game from Sushi Go! creator Phil Walker-Harding, and Gunkimono, the rethemed and revamped incarnation of tight tile-layer Heartland.

2019 Mensa Select® Winners Announced https://t.co/qKsyIzv6kv pic.twitter.com/AItX23m4HR

— American Mensa (@AmericanMensa) 14 April 2019