Agent Avenue

You deal two cards. Your opponent decides which one you get to keep.

Retired spies living quietly in a suburban neighbourhood of animals, each trying to work out which of their neighbours is the one they are actually looking for. Christian and Laura Kudahl designed it for Nerdlab Games, and the artwork carries a good deal of it — a quirky street of anthropomorphic agents, played entirely straight.

The engine is I split, you choose, which is the oldest fair-division problem there is. Each turn you play one card face up and one face down, and your opponent picks which of the two you keep — so the whole turn is spent trying to build two options you would be equally happy with, and not quite managing it. The cards are agents and tools that score sets or move you along a track, and the track is a race to unmask the spy sitting opposite. Ten to twenty minutes.

Perfect for: Anyone who has cut a cake in front of a sibling and understood, in that moment, exactly what fairness costs.

2–4 players | 10–20 minutes | Age 8+