[cableshaft]

An iPad. Seriously, most board and card games either have or are in the process of getting an app nowadays. You can load that sucker up with hundreds of deep complex games with good A.I. and play them to your heart's content.

Also, a lot of games have a lot of empty space in their box. I've been able to fit 6 games in the space of a Targi box, for example (great 2 player game that's deep but small, btw). I think I managed to put Targi, Tides of Time, Lost Cities, a Smash Up expansion (playable at 2 players), and a couple others in there.

I'd also recommend a 6 Nimmmt! or a Rage deck (has 6 suits numbered 0-15, suitable for a lot of modern card games). There are a whole bunch of games you can play with those decks and they take up no space at all. Also 6 Nimmmt! is a blast with 6+ players, in my opinion.

Also I'm a game designer, and I find myself bringing out a Rage deck pretty often to prototype new ideas. It's very versatile. Just did it again for a new idea yesterday.

6 Nimmmt: https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/24313/games-playable-deck...

Rage: https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/1907/games-playable-rage-...

Some smaller footprint but deeper games I'd recommend are Arboretum, Akrotiri, Kahuna, Targi, Bohnanza, Noir: Killer vs Assassin, Tichu (can be played with standard playing cards and 4 marked up jokers, or with the aforementioned Rage deck.. super deep partner game), Biblios, Armadora, 12 Days, R-Eco, Condottiere, For Sale (playable with 6 Nimmmt! and some tokens), The Game (playable with 6 Nimmmt! deck).

[usrusr]

Just chiming in to second the praise of Tichu: the rules just feel so well designed with their careful blend of systematic regularity (everything adding up to easy 100s, no asymmetry between the for colors) and convention (most new players already know the combinations from poker) that is balanced by just the right amount of occasional chaos (when too man hands align into "bombs") and arbitrary detail (the bird and the dog, two of those specially marked jokers) to spice things up. Everything seems to have a purpose, whereas the arbitrary elements of evolved rulesets of traditional card games often seem somewhat random to me.

[Splines]

This is really anecdotal, and I don't have a ton of experience with iPad versions of board games, but I've tried several on Android and it feels like all of them are just slightly rough around the edges. It's really hard to put my finger on it but something about them is just slightly unsatisfying to use. Maybe it's the performance or lack of snappy animations or sounds. Hearthstone is one that feels pretty good to play.

[c256]

In my experience, this is one of the areas where iOS has a real advantage over Android -- the iOS games are frequently better polished and put together. (That's been true every time I've looked -- which I've done multiple times, but not constantly, so maybe things have/will shift; I dunno.)

[chryton]

Only issue with Arboretum would be potential table space.

Condottiere is also a great small game!