Mind games

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

The award has been running almost 20 years, first being handed out to the likes of Taboo, Scattergories and Trivial Pursuit in 1990.

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.