Games like BAO
If BAO is your kind of game, the closest matches are Canvas - The Board Game, Paper Flags and Sente — picked from the ranked list below. Each pick is ranked by what players of this game also play, shared genres and tags, and review-mined similarity — not a generic popularity list.
Get personalized picks →About BAO: BAO is a brilliant mancala type boardgame from East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania). Like Chess and Go, Bao leaves nothing to chance. 100% strategy = 200% fun. Think many turns ahead and you will become a true BAO master!
Players who liked BAO also play
Steam players who put hours into BAO also tend to own these titles — a signal called collaborative filtering. imho.run cross-references millions of library ownership patterns to surface games whose real audiences overlap, regardless of whether their genre tags match.
Canvas - The Board Game
WHY THIS
Top pick for BAO fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Strategy with BAO.
Create stunning paintings, layer cards strategically, and score ribbons in Canvas - a digital board game where art meets strategy. Choose and combine Art Cards to create beautiful paintings and enjoy a mix of artistic expression and tactical gameplay.
Paper Flags
WHY THIS
Second-strongest match for BAO fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Strategy with BAO.
A two-player abstract strategy game on a 9×9 board. Fold your pieces to advance diagonally. Unfold them into flags — moving like rooks across rank and file. Plant three flags on your opponent's back row, or cut their forces to three.
Sente
WHY THIS
Third-strongest match for BAO fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Strategy with BAO.
Sente is a strategic board game where every player moves at the same time. Your victory isn't about acting first, it's about thinking ahead. Inspired by the clarity of Chess and Go, with a wholly original ruleset and support for 1–6 players.
Ticket to Ride: Classic Edition
WHY THIS
Ranked #5 for BAO fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Strategy with BAO.
CONNECT MORE THAN CITIES! Set off with your friends and family to re(discover) Ticket to Ride: Classic Edition, the classic boardgame. In this railway adventure, you’ll need to be the quickest to link up your cities and reach your destinations.
Root
WHY THIS
Ranked #6 for BAO fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Strategy with BAO.
Might makes right in the wild wood! The award-winning board game of asymmetrical woodland warfare comes to cross-platform digital play! Combine subtle strategy and bold daring to guide your forest faction to victory!
Roll Player - The Board Game
WHY THIS
Ranked #7 for BAO fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Strategy with BAO.
Create the ultimate Fantasy character by rolling dice, building attributes, purchasing weapons, gaining skills, and discovering character traits in Roll Player, a digital adaptation of a popular board game of dice manipulation and strategy!
Wingspan
WHY THIS
Ranked #8 for BAO fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Strategy with BAO.
Wingspan is a relaxing, award-winning strategy card game about birds for 1 to 5 players. Each bird you play extends a chain of powerful combinations in one of your three habitats. Your goal is to discover and attract the best birds to your network of wildlife preserves.
Cheaper alternatives
Games in the same vein priced at least 40% below BAO at current Steam store prices.
Nodebuster
WHY THIS
Priced ~57% under BAO on Steam right now. Shares Strategy with BAO.
Nodebuster is a short, experimental incremental game about busting nodes and destroying reality.
shapez
WHY THIS
Priced ~86% under BAO on Steam right now. Shares Strategy with BAO.
shapez is an easy-going, minimalistic factory building game about the automation of shapes through extraction and satisfying production lines. Adapt to increasingly complex shapes and grow your factory across an infinitely expanding map. Your only limitation is your creativity!
Tower Wizard
WHY THIS
Priced ~57% under BAO on Steam right now. Shares Strategy with BAO.
Help a wizard build and upgrade a wizard tower in this incremental game! Use the tower to study magic, summon spirits, create buildings, and influence the world.
Bejeweled® 3
WHY THIS
Priced ~86% under BAO on Steam right now. Shares Strategy with BAO.
The biggest, brightest Bejeweled ever! Discover all-new ways to play the world’s #1 puzzle game. Find your perfect match with 8 breathtaking game modes that meet all your moods.
Dictators:No Peace Countryballs
WHY THIS
Priced ~86% under BAO on Steam right now. Shares Strategy with BAO.
Dictators : No Peace Countryballs is a war simulation and dictator game. This is a fun,simple and some say a funny countryballs game. If you like simulation games, you will love playing Dictators : No Peace. Play as a dictator of your favourite country and colonize the world.
Master Healer Kale with useless party
WHY THIS
Priced ~43% under BAO on Steam right now. Shares Strategy with BAO.
A short incremental game where you play as a Healer in a party. Your main job is to keep your party alive. Upgrade 200+ skills in a skill tree, from healing to party damage. Designed to be completed in around 4 hours.
Hexcells Plus
WHY THIS
Priced ~57% under BAO on Steam right now. Shares Strategy with BAO.
Hexcells Plus is an ambient logic puzzle game for PC, Mac and Linux.
Free alternatives
Free-to-play games that recommended players of this title also tend to enjoy.
Life is Strange - Episode 1
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it.
Episode 1 now FREE! Life is Strange is an award-winning and critically acclaimed episodic adventure game that allows the player to rewind time and affect the past, present and future.
Ultimate Custom Night
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it.
Welcome to the ultimate FNAF mashup, featuring 50 selectable characters and custom difficulties!
Bongo Cat
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it.
Bongo cat needs your help. Bongo cat needz more hatz!!! Every time you press a key, Bongo cat will punch your taskbar. Type, click, play, work to collect more points. Which hats will you find?
Indigo Park: Chapter 1
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it.
Explore the abandoned childhood wonder of Indigo Park! Guided by Rambley the Raccoon, help restore power to the destroyed amusement park while you run from the reason it shut down.
The Looker
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it.
You wake up, alone, on a strangely familiar island full of puzzles that will frustrate and annoy you.
Sheepy: A Short Adventure
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it.
A Short Handcrafted Pixel Art Platformer that follows Sheepy, an abandoned plushy brought to life. Sheepy: A Short Adventure is the first short game from MrSuicideSheep.
Our Life: Beginnings & Always
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it.
A twenty-dollar bill, four summers, fifteen years, and a one of a kind life. Create an experience that’s all your own in this near-fully customizable visual novel where you grow from childhood to adulthood with the lonely boy next door.
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Head-to-head comparisons
Frequently asked about BAO
- How much does BAO cost?
- BAO is listed on Steam at 6.99 USD (current store price; Steam sales may reduce this temporarily).
- Does BAO have multiplayer or co-op?
- Yes — BAO supports multi-player play according to its Steam store listing (Multi-player, Cross-Platform Multiplayer, Online PvP).
- What games are most similar to BAO?
- Based on Steam play patterns and shared genres/tags, the games most often recommended alongside BAO are Canvas - The Board Game, Paper Flags, Sente.
- Who developed BAO?
- BAO was developed by VMS Media.
imho.run ranks Steam game alternatives using a mix of collaborative filtering (ALS / iALS / EASE / LightGCN), content scoring over genres, categories, Steam tags, developers, and publishers, plus AI-extracted vibes mined from review text. The page above is generated in seed mode anchored on BAO.
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