by Scott Alden

As part of the celebration of BGG's 25th anniversary, we are pleased to announce the final five of 25 inductees into The BoardGameGeek Hall of Fame, listed in order by release date.

For background on The BGG Hall of Fame, the reasoning behind which games were eligible and which were chosen, and the first five inductees by chronological order, please see this introductory post. Inductees #6-10 can be seen here, #11-15 here and #16-20 here.

This concludes the list of the first 25 inductees to the BoardGameGeek Hall of Fame. Thank you to all of the jury and all of the contributors who have helped to form this award. This will be an annual award, so we'll see you next year!

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21. Pandemic — 2008
Matt Leacock's Pandemic wasn't the first co-operative game on the market, but it quickly became the benchmark to which all other co-operative games are compared. Players work together to find cures for four diseases that have sprung up around the world. Everyone has a unique ability and a role to play, with combination of powers having a different feel. Diseases spread both gradually and suddenly, with players being able to use knowledge of past outbreaks to guess where they're needed most, whether to keep disease in check, to establish research stations, or to share information to create a cure. The Pandemic system has made its way into multiple spinoff titles, while also inspiring countless other designers.

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22. 7 Wonders — 2010
Antoine Bauza's 7 Wonders is yet another take on a civilization game, with each player starting with the blueprints for a wonder they can build, as well as a hand of Age 1 cards. Each turn, everyone simultaneously chooses a card, passes the rest to their neighbor, then plays their card or discards it for money. Cards come in seven types, and as you progress through three ages, you somewhat abstractly develop your infrastructure, battle neighbors, build on past discoveries, and construct your wonder. Each card you choose to take leaves opportunities for your opponents — and with 7 Wonders allowing for up to seven players while playing in less than an hour, it became a runaway hit and swept awards around the world.

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23. The Castles of Burgundy — 2011
For years, designer Stefan Feld was synonymous with alea, a German strategy game brand launched in 1999 with Ra. The most popular of his seven alea titles is The Castles of Burgundy, in which players build a princedom one tile at a time. Each turn, players roll two dice, then use them to draft tiles into their reserve, place them on their board, and deliver goods. This design is an ideal example of a "point salad" game in which you want to make as much as you can out of each tiny action so that you can fill areas on your board, acquire goods, gain coins, take bonus actions, and grab bonus buildings that work with your strategy. The Castles of Burgundy popularized the "point salad" genre, which is now common in the game industry.

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24. Terra Mystica — 2012
Terra Mystica demonstrates that you can have a high conflict, high interaction game without combat or casualties. Each player in this luck-free design by Jens Drögemüller and Helge Ostertag takes one of fourteen factions, each with unique abilities and each calling one of the seven types of landscape home. Over six rounds, you use workers, money, and priests to build dwellings, temples, trading houses, and strongholds, but you can build only on your home turf, which requires you to terraform land, land that opponents might also want. In addition to spawning two game series, Gaia Project and Age of Innovation, Terra Mystica remains a favorite of competitive boardgamers and a classic of refined design.

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25. Concordia — 2013
Mac Gerdts' Concordia does so much with so little. With a long-term goal of building trade routes across the Roman Empire, you start with only two figures in Rome and a hand of seven action cards. On a turn, you play a card to earn coins; move; build production houses; produce, buy and trade resources; copy another player's action; buy a new card; or get all your cards back while putting more figures on the board. This card system defines which actions you can perform, as well as how you score at game's end since each card corresponds to a Roman god who scores in a unique way. Concordia's simple but engaging design shows that complex play doesn't require complicated rules.

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