Here’s something that continually surprises me at PAX: the amount of people who attend the show purely to play board games with their buddies. It’s insane. This is a massively growing thing in gaming culture so I wanted to ask you all about it: have you recently gotten into board games? What games are you playing?
For me personally, board games are something I play sporadically with friends. And I don’t really play many ‘hardcore’ board games. It’s mostly things like Balderdash or Scrabble — party games. Occasionally we’ll play something like Settlers of Catan, but I’m not into card games like Magic or Netrunner.
But that doesn’t mean I’m not interested. Maybe I could be convinced. What board games do you play? What board games do you recommend?
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161 responses to “Tell Us Dammit: Board Games”
Ticket to Ride Europe and Airlines Europe are fun for people who aren’t huge on games.
I used to play Hero Quest and Space Crusade with my cousin all the time as kids. Other than that, though, no… Not really in to board games.
I used to play Hero Quest but cannibalised the figures during high school to play Horde of the Things. I recently re-purchased the original Hero Quest second hand so I could play it with my daughter.
Playing a lot of Zombicide. Great game!
On each of the scenarios, it gives you an estimated time to complete, but since we have season 1, the expansion for season 1 and season 2, the time is doubled, which is a bit of a shame.
Still great to play though, would highly recommend it.
Have you ever played that as 2 player? How does it work.
Looking for a few more games to play at home wit just the 2 of us
I bought this during PAX for myself and my partner to play and weve enjoyed it a lot with just the 2 of us, to the point were already looking at buying all the expansions. Highly recommend even just for 2 people.
That’s what I wanted to hear. It’s on the wishlist.
Thanks to you as well @zimmy
I had some good fun playing it with two people, iirc we controlled 3 survivors each.
We even had a bit of a campaign thing going where if a character died then next game they had to be replaced with a different survivor.
@trjn get in here and drop a master class
Hi.
Yes I too was wanting for Lord Of The Board Games to make an entrance 😉
(although, LOTBG is a fairly cumbersome acronym, can anyone think of anything catchier?)
Ahh I see your proper post is below, cool
There are some that call me … Tim.
Well, no. Nobody calls me that.
It is possible you just misheard them saying “Trjn” (which I am presuming is pronounced “Trin”) 😛
Personally I’m hankering for Chrissy time, as my sisters are coming to visit and one of them always brings a few new board games to play 🙂
Board games rock, that is all.
It’s a Monty Python reference: Trojan Rabbit. After some shortening and whatnot, it ended up at Trjn but most of my friends call me something rabbit related.
Family get togethers are actually quite good for board gaming. A few years ago, I introduced my siblings to Ticket to Ride at Christmas. Now whenever I see them (which is unfortunately rare), I try to bust out something new. Last time, it was Coup.
Yeah I got the Monty Python thing (though I didn’t know that’s where your handle came from, another mystery solved!), ahh Holy Grail, many a laughter filled night of cones and the python movies back in college days 😛
It was from joining a Monty Python club where we would just order pizza and watch python movies every few weeks in lecture rooms with projectors, good stuffs!
Cards Against Humanity counts right? That’s pretty much it for me.
I received the Australian version in the mail 2 hours ago…. cannot wait to bust this out.
For an in-store buy of $25, it’s worth it for a laugh.
More like bored games!
You’ve still got it, DC. 😛
Boo!
One day we’re gonna have to engage in fisticuffs!
How about a vicious game of Hive instead?
Insult sword fighting? I am rubber you are glue!
How appropriate, you fight like a cow.
No DC, @trjn was saying boo-urns
I particularly enjoyed the verbal self-fist bump.
munchkins!
me and a few mates try to get together every few months and play…
caverna, GOT, ticket to ride, munchkins, SoC etc
Settlers of Catan is my personal drug of choice but 7 Wonders is rapidly climbing those ranks, especially amongst my friends who can’t get enough of it (and I think it’s more accessible for them, which is part of the reason)
Apart from that I’ll play pretty much anything.
I spent most of my PAX at the tabletop area, although that was mostly driven by the fact prams couldn’t be in the expo hall.
I picked up acquire during PAX which is a nice easy one to get into to. Was described as monopoly scrabble multiple times as we played. Easy mechanics and different strategies make it a fun game.
Takenoko has a cute panda, what more do you want from a board game.
7 wonders is a great game for new comers and veterans alike
I’m a fan of Galaxy truckers and it has difficulty levels so you can play fairly with people of different skill levels.
Ticket to ride is probably the current ‘best’ introductory game. Easy, fun, thematically understandable and well balanced.
The great thing about board games is that there is such a huge range now there will be something for everybody if they are willing to try
Galaxy Truckers is chaotic nonsense in the best possible way. Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. There’s so much joy to be had watching your friends limp across space after you’ve been annihilated by an asteroid swarm only for them to fall to slavers right before the end.
Just ask @alexpants about being streamlined and efficient.
One of the funniest games I’ve ever played and best of all, most of it comes from the madness that ensues (although the rulebook is pretty witty too).
What an adventure me and half of my ship had…
PANDA
Went to PAX with little to no interest in board games, over the course of the 3 days I spent most of my time at the tabletops!
Highly recommend Resistance and Rhino Hero!
I like to play the games on boards. Betrayal at House on the Hill is great. Sentinels of the Multiverse is awesome. Smash Up is fun. Munchkin is pretty good. I generally prefer co-op games (yay non-competitive!) so Sentinels is probably my number one at the moment.
Next PAX I’m going to stop pretending I’m there for the vidya games, I’m there 95% to hangout and play/watch board games!
Sentinels is so great. I wish someone would take it and re-theme it (maybe do a Marvel or DC version or something) with better artwork though.
I almost didn’t upvote this because you spoke positively of Munchkin. I’ll let it slide this time only because I know that, in time, you’ll learn the error of your ways.
Board game snob, out!
Hey, my opinion of it has gone from “great” to “pretty good”. Surely that counts for something. It serves as a reasonable entry into playing more and *better* games
I’m not going to lie, the first proper board games I bought were Ticket to Ride, Munchkin and a Mahjong set that is still to be used.
I can genuinely see why people enjoy Munchkin and it has its place. That place is simply nowhere near my table.
Anyway, Cutthroat Caverns does the Munchkin thing better. 🙂
You know what, a lot of people have a lot of fun playing Munchkin and why not let them? It’s a fun little entry game.
However, @trjn and I don’t really enjoy it so we don’t play it.
I just bought second ed. Betryal at House on the Hill for my wife. I’m sure it’ll be right up her alley, what with all murder and possible turning on each other.
I dunno about actual board games but yesterday I got cards against humanity AU edition, which im sure will be really fun as soon as I have friends.
I spent most of PAX in Tabletop. It’s a great way to try out new games and stuff, plus the activity is inherently much more social so it’s better for a social gathering like PAX than, say, sitting infront of a screen after queueing forever.
I got into Euro-style board games years ago. When I started working, my first office had some board gamers and we’d get together at lunch break to play Carcassonne or Catan or a few others.
Axis & Allies is a favourite of mine. I used to play against myself when I was in high school because it was so difficult to get friends organised for a weekend game (the game could take three hours or more)
I also like the Game of Thrones board game – although all my friends gang up on me because they don’t trust my motives *whistles innocently*
Rounding it off – Space Hulk – the re-release from GW a few years ago. Awesome miniatures and a pretty tough game too, if you are playing the space marine side.
Only 3 hours? You must have been playing the short version 😛 We used to have epic 7 hour games of axis and allies.
I used to the play the old Avalon Hill Victory at Sea and Victory in the Pacific games. So good.
Also there was that one time that I played a single game of 1776 (American Revolution wargame) spread out over a weekend that last about 10 hours.
Ha ha, yeah. Playing against myself was quicker because I knew the rules back to front and knew the most efficient ways to win. I’ve had the odd game with four other people and yes, they took forever!
Ah…I can’t believe you always fell for your own plans. 😀
Ha ha, it was more like me just playing on a turn by turn basis, so that I just took the board as I found it at the start of each turn, without planning ahead. To that extent none of the powers consciously worked together except if it was in their immediate best interests. I actually quite enjoyed it. I usually played with the optional rules so that the Axis stood a chance, although I do prefer the Axis powers as I find their strategies more enjoyable to play around with, particularly Japan.
Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that. Yeah those rules made it way more fun.
I used to hate board games because they were mainly just Monopoly, Scrabble, chess ect. But at the beggining of this year my brother bought Ticket to Ride and I really enjoyed it. After seeing the table top series from Geek and Sundry I was opened to a whole world of awesome board games that are actually pretty cool. I bought myself Munchkin and a Magic the Gathering Deck Builder set at PAX. I actually got a friend into Magic after we played in on the train on the way home.
Ah, board games. I like board games.
My plan for PAX was to get to the Tabletop area, set up camp and play through the weekend. It started off a little like that, with some games of Splendor and Machi Koro. Then we remembered that the rest of the convention was going on and got a little distracted. That being said, I made time to run several games of 2 Rooms and a Boom with 20-25 people and do some other awesome things.
Back when I lived in Sydney, my girlfriend and I would host weekly board gaming meetups at our apartment. We’d regularly have a good number of people crammed into our little apartment all evening. It was fantastic. Lighter games were the norm for us. Things like Takenoko, Ticket to Ride and The Resistance but my favourite game to bust out was 7 Wonders. I love me some 7 Wonders.
I also liked pestering @markserrels to try and get to these meetups. Fairly sure I sent him an email every week about this.
Every time we go on a little road trip out of Dubbo, we tend to pack the boot full of board games and stop by some TAYbies. When we went to my sister’s wedding, we hung out with @redartifice and played Suburbia (which I’ve finally been able to snag a copy of). When we went down to Melbourne so that @freya could do some training, we hung out at @f4ction’s with a whole host of awesome TAYbies and played a ridiculous amount of games including Sentinels of the Multiverse.
I’ve only been into board gaming since Wil Wheaton’s Tabletop series became a thing. That only a bit more than 2 years. In that time, I’ve discovered this whole new world of genius mechanics, devious subterfuge and amazing social interactions. Before then, I was interested in things like Magic the Gathering, which I find mechanically fascinating even if I don’t play (just ask me about fetch lands). So the spark was always there.
Oh and then there’s Qwirkle. Qwirkle is this odd little combination of Scrabble and Dominos that is so simple that I’ve taught it to people I barely share a language with but have genuinely enjoyed every game I’ve played. There’s enough depth to make things interesting and enough shenanigans that I’ve started to accumulate stories about what happens in the games.
I could go on about this topic for a long, long time.
Ah the love of board games….. Our group is playing our second run of Risk Legacy (which shows how much we liked it the first time), but I always find the problem is getting the non board gamers to appreciate them….. so we have the games like King of Tokyo, Velociraptor Cannibalism, Tsuro which are relatively short but still have some strategy to see who can be converted to the next level….. Which leads me to 7 wonders. Can you give me the Trjn “this game is awesome because” review as I reckon this might be another good one to drop into the games for people who are not fully obsessed category….
Just to get things out of the way, I’m a massive fanboy of Antoine Bauza (designer of 7 Wonders). Expect gushiness.
7 Wonders is awesome because it’s clever and there is practically no downtime. The game is based around building up a civilisation around an ancient wonder through card drafting. Each turn, every player is going to choose one card from a hand of cards and then pass the rest on. This is done simultaneously and is why the game is going to take 30-45 minutes no matter how many people you’ve got.
From those cards and with the specific wonder in front of you, you can try and hone in on specific strategies. You can try and amass a giant army to bully your neighbours. You can be a leader of industry and lead the world in science. You can cover your city in statues and other pretty things or you can just be a rich bastard. More importantly, you can mix and match all of this based on what’s coming to you and what your neighbours are doing.
Your neighbours are possibly the most important part of the game. You only ever interact with the players to your left and right. You trade resources with them and go to war with them. Towards the end of the game, you can score points based off of what they’ve done.
It’s simple. It’s elegant. It has good strategic depth.
Oh and the art on the cards is pretty damned awesome as well.
@Trjn do you happen to go/swing by that shop in Tamworth St?
Every time at the in-laws I normally walk past it and see people playing… but have yet to venture in…
Gamer’s Guild?
I’ve been a few times. They do board gaming nights every Monday and some Saturdays but mostly they focus on Magic the Gathering.
Does Monopoly Count? I play the heck out of that!
Sure.
Depending on what you like about Monopoly, there are an insane amount of games out there that handle the same ideas much better. Personally, I like Power Grid.
We had Monopoly Jr when I was a teenager (with 4 younger siblings…) and to be honest, it was more fun than the adult version. The one we had was fairground themed, so you had to buy ticket stalls for the rides. The highest denomination was $5, and the board was smaller, so it was over much more quickly than a normal game. Planning on buying a version for Batboy when he’s old enough to do the maths for it.
Monopoly is actually a pretty fast game. Most people just add a whole bunch of house rules that slow it down to a complete crawl. People seem to hate the player elimination aspect of it and try to solve it by dragging things out as long as goddamned possible. Then they complain that the game takes too long.
Monopoly Jr takes a decent approach with the whole “as soon as one player is out, end the game”.
Don’t get me wrong, Monopoly isn’t a fundamentally bad game. It’s just that there are many games out there that are significantly better.
I agree. What makes games like Settlers, Catan and Ticket to Ride all great is that there is a definite finish and it encourages people to get on with it.
Does anyone play Star Wars X-Wing?
My mates and I have all just jumped into that one…it’s a really great game, and the miniatures are super high quality too.
It’s cool cos I can also play it in simple mode with my 6yr old son, and we have a blast!
@markserrels You and your boy will love it (in 5 or so yrs time)
Also @markserrels…this is out of the blue, but I was having a weekend in Sydney this last weekend, and were you, by any chance on a bus headed from Sydney to Bondi on Saturday morn? I saw a man with the extremely white skin of an office worker, but the somewhat buffed arms of a rock climber who spoke with a Scottish accent the words “Oh it’s alright” when a lady was trying to get her pram past….
Mark…was that, indeed, you?
I was staring at it longingly in a board game store recently, looks really awesome!
Buy or buy not…there is no stare….
X-Wing looks fun but it looks incredibly expensive if you keep buying new ships. That’s the main thing that’s stopping me.
It can be exy, but the trick is not getting suckered into buying every ship they make…plus if you buy from bookdepository, it’s quite affordable ($12-15 per ship). I’ve spent maybe $150 of my collection and it’s decent…also, if a few mates are getting into it, you can get different things between you.
Remember a game usually only has 3-5 ships per side, so even if you owned every single thing, you only use a few per game anyway.
Yeah, I was also thinking that if I get into it, I might just get the base set and focus on non-EU stuff. I might also try to get someone else to focus on Rebel stuff and only get Imperial stuff and Slave I to split the costs a bit.
If you just get a core set and imperial aces ($60ish all up) and your mate gets core set and Rebel Aces (same-ish price) you’d have plenty to start you off on some great games. You could do with just that for ages.
You make it sound so easy. Naturally, this means I must do this immediately and hope I can find these ‘mates’ you keep referring to.
Haha…
I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but a game is usually a 100 point squad limit (like a loadout allowance). And each ship is worth about 20-30ish points…so you can see that you can generally only have like 3-5 ships in a side anyway. That’s why worrying about buying a massive collection isn’t really a problem, since you can’t use them all at once anyway.
Of course resisting the urge to MUST….GET…EVERY…SHIP….. is a whole different matter 😛
I’ve played it with my mate and quite like it. I don’t know if we were playing it properly but I found my Darth Vader to be almost untouchable. He won the game as the sole survivor, taking down two opposing rebels by himself, and making excellent use of barrel rolls 🙂
I’ve dabbled in Risk now and the. Can be fun.
Have to admit, I am dying to try the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. Don’t know why it calls so strongly, but it does. Can’t afford many board games, but there’s a column on board games on RPS that constantly makes me drool.
Rab does some great writing on board games. If you’re interested in more of that sort of thing, Shut Up and Sit Down does some great reviews that will make you want to just hurl money at your local FLGS.
X-Wing, Star Wars Armada, Star wars Imperial Assault, battlestar galactica, game of thrones.
All amazing.
I first got into the newer (non-Monopoly) series of board games about 6 years ago when a friend started an online business selling them and asked me to do his website.
For a brief period, I was playing semi-regularly… then I had a disastrous night with a game of Doom the Board Game that went on for either 5 or 7 hours (players wouldn’t abide by the 1 minute per turn house rule).
Only started getting back into it with another friend then started a fortnightly work lunch break group. My work group rotates who brings in games. So far, we’ve played Last Night on Earth, Citadel, King of Tokyo and Pandemic. Tomorrow we are playing The Resistance. Our next game will probably be Betrayal at House on the Hill but also want to play Get Bit soon.
Last night, I put in a pre-order for Star Wars: Imperial Assault.
Fiance and I asked some of the guys in the boardgaming section of PAX for good board game to play with 2 people & we were recommended Pandemic. We have since played it most nights since then & she has now taken it with her mum out to the country. Fantastic fun & easy to learn!!
Great game
If you get into coop board games, Ghost Stories is fairly complex but I think really good. The two player dynamic is good as you use the concept of the four player game and adapt. It is not simple to learn, but once you know what you are trying to do it is great fun to try and beat it
Board games! I like board games.
The one I keep coming back to is carcassonne, it’s very relaxing. The good thing about board games is there’s really something for everybody, different games will scratch a different itch.
Coincidentally, a friend of mine is hosting a board game extravaganza in Brisbane this weekend so feel free to come on down. I think they have something like 100 different games to play so yeah, there’s a lot of options that are out there. https://www.facebook.com/vaultgamesoz
Personally I wouldn’t recommend Ticket To Ride as an introductory game. Sure it’s fairly straightforward but it is a bit dry. Better introductory games for me are games like Munchkin where it’s a little bit random, but also has some strategy, and basically everyone has a laugh and some fun. I’ve had lots of people who were complete strangers to board games love this game. Also there’s Robo Rally which is hilarious, just because you get to see people acting out in their heads the directions of the robots (it’s hard to describe without understanding the rules). That game is heaps of fun for everyone, even when you’re losing. If you haven’t tried those games I’d definitely recommend them both.
Another great game, a runner for the number one board game ever, is Carcassonne. It’s really simple to understand, at least to get started, but has a lot of depth to it. Also you can buy the expansions which all change the game in some way but still maintain the same core gameplay. The cool thing is by selecting the certain expansions that match the tastes of the players you can change it from being a more friendly game to a more cut throat game, or a map based game versus a resource based game (just for some examples).
There’s lots of other games I’d recommend if you’re a hardcore board game nerd, those are just a few that come straight to mind.
I second carcassonne, as it really was my intro game to the hobby. Munchkin… I’ve played Munchkin with new players, yeah, but if I have the choice I don’t use it to teach people. TTR ive found people can grok in about 5 Min, which is good for an intro game.
Co op games are pretty great too, like pandemic and Hanabi
One of the problems with Munchkin is that it has a lot of referential humour. If you are playing with people that don’t understand RPG tropes, they’re going to miss half the jokes.
I have had a lot of success introducing dozens of people to board games with games like Ticket to Ride (and Carcassonne, Hanabi, Qwirkle, Takenoko… it’s a long list). Different things will appeal to different people but I feel like Ticket to Ride really is at that sweet spot where it’s simple enough to grasp, competitive enough to get into and interesting enough to have people wanting more.
Hi @Trjn,
I’m fairly new to board gaming, as are a lot of my friends, and we’ve been playing the stuffing out of Carcassone (with all of the expansions as well as South Seas) and Cards Against Humanity. I was wondering if you have any recommendations for us to progress our gaming Journey?
I’m a bit more hardcore than my friends, having playedWings of Victory (I think it’s called that) and Twilight Imperium, but I would like to introduce them to something new.
Thanks!
It depends entirely on what sort of games you think will work for your group. Without really knowing what you like I’m just going to throw names and terms out there, feel free to Google them for more in depth information. Board Game Geek has very detailed information on everything I mention.
7 Wonders is a favourite of mine and one I’ve talked about elsewhere in these comments.
Dominion is a fantastic deck building game that will appeal to people who like trying to make combos happen.
Battlestar Galactica is a very intense traitor game where someone is secretly working against the group (The Resistance is what I’d recommend for a very light option, Shadows Over Camelot for something in the middle).
Lords of Waterdeep is an entry-level worker placement game. Tzol’kin and Village are more mid-range options. While Agricola and Caverna are your heavier options.
Eclipse is kinda sorta not really like Twilight Imperium. It’s definitely a lighter game and would be easier to introduce your friends to.
Rampage/Terror in Meeple City (the game is sold under both names) is a dexterity game where you physically smash a city you make out of meeples. Good goofy fun.
Galaxy Trucker is a chaotic tile placing game where you and your friends are trying to make it across the galaxy in haphazardly put together spaceships. Great game if you’re after an excuse to sit back and laugh as everything goes wrong for everyone.
Awesome! Thanks so much for that! My Google-fu will be getting a workout this afternoon at work, but now I have some where to start!.
I think someone else mentioned it previously, but you really should write game reviews. The way you talk about board games is easy to read, and very passionate.
Not a problem.
I’m going to try my hand at some board game writing soon. There’s just some ground work that has be done before it can become a reality. Thanks for the encouragement.
I just saw a that at one of the game expo things they had a massive board for robo rally and lego mindstorm as pieces. Looks awesome.
I have only played the game once but really enjoyed it
I’m not sure why, but we’ve initiated the purchase of at least four Settlers games. I wouldn’t have called it a “I never play board games”-friendly game and the first game is always a struggle, but without fail whoever we play it with is hooked and the next time we see them they’ve bought it.
Railways of the World, which was originally implemented as a board game version of Railroad Tycoon is a great game and works well with new people to gaming too.
Anyone played Krosmaster Arena? Was originally a Kickstarter arena PvP style boardgame which I got for christmas, and more recently the expansion; Frigost. The quality of the figures is amazing, the gameplay is in depth and allows for SO much customisation and strategy. In terms of board games, I don’t know what to compare it to. My friend said its like, if WoW arenas and League of Legends made a baby in the form of a board game, Krosmaster would be it.
Seriously, check this game out!
They had a booth at PAX and it looked kinda cool. Didn’t get a chance to try it out myself but the quality of the manufacture looks really really good.
Yeah man, the figures blew me away when I got my original copy. The best thing is, its kind of like a collectible game too, as they have (I believe) damn near 100 figures for you to try and mix up your unit combo. I love this game to bits.
PAX definitely ignited my love for boardgames. As for the games I’ve played: Munchkin Adventure Time, Zombies!!! (the one with the 3 exclamation points :P), Smallworld and Fluxxx
Smallworld is fun, although I find it doesn’t hold weight over a long run. I like the idea in principle but the problems you’re solving all become a bit reductive at the end of the day. But it’s definitely fun for a few games. If you like that you should try out Cosmic Encounters which is a similar idea.
Thanks for the recommendation 😀 I’ll look it up
Some people have a hate on for Munchkin, which is fine. I can play Munchkin, even though it’s not my preference (and I do own it).
Fluxx though. Fuck Fluxx. Send it back to whichever pit it emerged from
It just takes one bad game of Munchkin and you’ll want to set the cards on fire.
Oh, I want to do that, but I will tolerate it.
Fluxx should have been torched in the design phase.
I could go on a nice long rant about humour in board games. How games that rely on jokes end up like Trivial Pursuit, where after a few plays you’ve just memorised it all and are forced to endure some rather weak mechanics. How games that rely on humour coming from the mechanics (see the works of Vlaada Chvatil) and the players themselves will always stand the test of time.
But I won’t.
Praise be unto Vlaada.
BallsI find Fluxx less painful than Munchkin, personally.
Munchkin seems okay with 3 or so players. Too many more and the game just goes on too long for the fun it provides. Not a fan of the whole ‘everyone just play all your cards to stop the person from winning’ thing. Last time we played it, we house-ruled the game to have a 45 minute time limit, and even that was too long.
Some people take the fun out of Fluxx though… Like the Pirate Fluxx… We drew the rule where everyone should speak Pirate and if they do, they draw 2 extra cards…
I was the only one doing it
Board games come first between me and my friends, video games comes later. Nothing better than a game night, from the simple to the super extreme, 1000 piece games. Settlers of Catan, pandemic, munchkin, citadels and so on.
Arkham Horror got me back into board games about 7 years ago and I haven’t stopped. Lately I’ve been after an excuse to play either Fury of Dracula or Fortune and Glory.
Agricola: The ultimate farming experience. Or, Bonanza: the ultimate bean trading experience.
Just commenting on this article so I can find it later to track down all the awesome game recommendations. Usually buy board games for family members at Christmas, so this is a well timed article for me!
On top of all the ones people are mentioning, I’m just going to throw a few more at you.
Hanabi is a co-operative game where you and your friends work together to build a fireworks display in a fashion similar to Solitaire. The twist is that you play with your cards backwards and it is really a game about communication. There are limited clues you can tell your friends to get them to play the right cards. Simple, elegant and only takes about 15 minutes.
Love Letter is another quick game where you’re fighting for the affection of a princess. You’ll use your cards to knock the other suitors out of competition. There’s a mild bluffing element and it’s generally just a nice, simply game to bust out to kill some time.
Coup is Love Letter with the bluffing turned up to eleven. Instead of fighting for the hand of a princess, you’re fighting for control of a royal court. Each player will take actions in order to build up enough money to stage a coup (done to make a player lose a card). Those actions are done based on the cards you have but you can bluff about the cards you have. If someone calls your bluff, you lose a card. If someone tries to call your bluff but you were honest, they lose a card.
Nice, thanks for the recommendations.
Gave my sister Love Letter for her birthday, but haven’t had a chance to play it with her yet.
Sounds like Coup is a good one to follow up with for her christmas present. ‘Cheat’ (aka bullshit) was always one of her favourite card games, so sounds right up her alley.
Hanabi sounds like a good one to add to the ‘dinner party with friends’ category. Currently the go to ones are Dixit & Compatibility (chosen mainly for ease of picking up the rules/tactics).
I’ve been in the hobby for just over 2 years now and still love it. Like some others I was first introduced to tabletop gaming with Carcassonne (what’s that, a board game where you don’t roll dice and move?!). I like to say that Carcassonne got me interested in the hobby, and then Battlestar Galactica, Citadels and The Resistance pulled me in. I haven’t wanted to give it up since.
The biggest draw for me is the social interaction with other players. It’s so great playing a game like The Resistance – where the goal is to successfully complete missions while ensuring the spies in your midst don’t fail them – and staring each other down as you try to work out who’s on your side and who’s the enemy. Unlike video games, the focus is not on the screen but on each other; why can’t that person look you in the eye, or why has the loudest person in the group suddenly gone all quiet?
There is so, so much I can say when it comes to this pastime, but really, you should just go and try it for yourselves. One piece of advice though. There are SO many board games out there right now covering so many different genres, themes and mechanisms… don’t be put off if you don’t enjoy the first game you play; there’s bound to be something out there that you’ll love.
I like a lot of Tabletop games, but my interests definitely skew more towards card or miniatures games; HeroClix, Star Wars Minis, D&D Minis, etc.
I picked up X-wing Minis after an introductory game at PAX. It’s quite good, and quite likely to be a long term investment. Since the expansion packs aren’t randomised, it means that I can buy ships to recreate space battles from the Star Wars universe. I can do the same with most land battles using SW Minis, but that’s because I used to buy them in bulk.
@gingerchris86 plays the Star Trek game based on the same rules.
Fantasy Flight are also putting out a new SW miniatures game that’s more about epic space battles instead of smaller skirmishes.
The living card game model that they’re using for this stuff (well, not exactly but it’s incredibly similar) seems to be damned successful. There’s a cheap enough entry point and the steady drip of investment never really feels like too much.
Yup, the next game is Star Wars Armada, or something to that effect. It’ll still include starfighters and whatnot, but focuses on the larger fleet battles.
Definitely agreed on the “LCG” model; I think you could very easily draw a lot of parallels between Xwing and Netrunner for this purpose. The core set contains usable units, and is compatible with even the latest additions.
There are people on Board Game Geek who are trying to work out a way to get X-Wings Minatures, Armada and Imperial Assault working together to form super-epic battles like the end of Return of the Jedi.
I’m still a big fan of 7 Wonders – its the “go to” game for our group when we have 6 or 7 people hanging around and dont know what to play – also a great game to introduce newcomers to board gaming. It seems a little complicated at first – but its really not. One game and you’ve got most of it. Always fun decisions to make! And thats after 70 logged games (face to face, not online either).
Played a fair bit of Sushi Go (which you could consider as 7 Wonder Lite) – ideal introduction for new gamers.
The most fun for a few people? Incan Gold (or Diamant if you find an old copy….) – push your luck cave adventure. Find the treasure, bail on your friends – its awesome!
If you really want to screw your friends, may I recommend Survive – Escape from Atlantis – where you’re all trying to get your meeples off the sinking island and to safety. And the water is full of sharks, whales, and sea monsters. Which you get to control. Eat your friends! Or take control of their boat and row around in circles!
Fav game of the moment: Battle at Kembles Cascade – a board game simulation of a vertically scrolling shoot em up. Complete with scrolling board (rows of tiles), powerups, ship and weapon upgrades, pvp, and a huge boss at the end of the level.
The best game at PAX this year was The Sheriff of Nottingham. Just an amazing bluffing game that had our friends and more than a few spectators laughing. It’s due later this month, give it a go.
If you and your friends are interested in light games try Ticket to Ride, King of Tokyo, Jamaica, and Coup. For a party game Telestrations, or 2 Rooms & a Boom if you’re adventurous. For the more tactical minded there’s Carcassonne and 7 Wonders.
I promise, that if you have good company and like games (computer or not) you will have a good time.
If you like the idea of Munchkins – perhaps try Cutthroat Caverns, which (although still a bit random) has a bit more of a game to it.
Jesus this has started some proper Boardgame love 😀
Also, @trjn you seem to be the local god/guru of boardgaming. Kudos for spreading the love 😀
I was already heavily into boardgame shenanigans as a kid thanks to getting a copy of Talisman, and my love of toy soldiers. It was reignited a couple of years ago thanks to some fun people playing Dixit, Settlers, 7 Wonders, Ticket to Ride etc etc. Since then I can’t get enough. I’m trying to get in the habit of hosting a monthly boardgame day at my place as it’s a good space for it.
Biggest surprise was picking up Arkham Horror at PAX this year to play (not buy…) and we all though ‘1.5 hours… that seems ok!’
5 hours later we’d been a turn away from victory for more than half the game and we all lost by a bee’s willy. What a goddamn blast that turned out to be. A couple of mates picked up copies so hopefully I can play soon.
You’d have to drag me away.
If Arkham Horror starts to feel a bit too fiddly or the rules a little too cumbersome, there’s a new streamlined version called Eldritch Horror you might want to check out.
Eldritch horror is the version my mate picked up. Shame they all live in Brissie and I’m here in Melbourne. Shame on them that is bwahahaha.
Outside of the odd game of Catan and Carcassonne, board games were never a thing for me. But all that changed early this year when I took a shot on Netrunner. Having had to give away Magic back in my teens (some 20 years ago O_O) due to the costs involved, I was intrigued by the idea of a TCG that had no randomness in card purchasing.
I became hooked very very quickly.
Netrunner was my gateway drug to the wider world of boardgaming. I started exploring beyond the world of corps and runners and discovered just what I’ve been missing.
In the relatively short time since I started playing board games the following happened – http://boardgamegeek.com/collection/user/ElPrezAU
😛
As it stands, board games are my hobby of choice. I try and get as many sessions in as I can.
I’ve been writing professionally about videogames for over a decade and would never have thought cardboard would slap videogames from the top spot of my preferred hobbies. But one simple fact can’t be ignored:
** Board games as a whole are doing infinitely more interesting things than videogames these days **
I know, this sounds like sacriledge, but I honestly believe it to be true. The low barrier to entry for content creation is seeing a ridiculous amount of innovation. Even within specific genres of board games (such as worker placement) you find a wide range of different mechanics and styles – compare T’zolkin to Lords of Waterdeep to The Manhatten Project to the reverse placement styles of “Five Tribes”.
Then you have the geuinely groundbreaking stuff that doesn’t even relate to pre-existing mechanics; games like Tragedy Looper, which is a simply astonishing creation.
Board games are in the middle of a rennaissance and now is the perfect time to get on board (pun intended). Scrabble, Monopoly, Cluedo (or Clue for our US friends) are all redundant. They don’t represent the modern boardgame and should be consigned to the annals of boardgame history. The new hotness is REALLY hot and will blow your mind, even if you have experienced the games that kickstarted this resurgence (namely Settlers of Catan). You don’t know what you are in for.
And as a quick sign-off I figured I may as well point out the favourites in my collection for anyone who is looking for recommendations (note: these are not necessarily good places to start if you are new to the scene).
Terra Mystica
A good step up from Catan, this area control game is so wonderfully designed. Despite its thick rule book, it is surprisingly easy to play and offers a very high degree of strategy.
Tash Kalar
A masterful creation by Vlaada Chvátil – The best way to think of Tash Kalar is as Go where the patterns on the board allow you to summon powerful beings that add/remove tokens making new patterns allowing you to summon even more powerful beings. Brilliantly thematic for what is essentially an abstract title.
Galaxy Trucker
Oh look, it’s Vlaada again (get used to this – he’s my favourite designer). Galaxy Trucker is a weird game that tasks you with building a rickety old space ship within a tight time limit and then testing it against the horrendously unfair realms of space. This is a game for people who don’t mind bad things happening to them and enjoy watching the same things happen to others.
Battlecon: Devastation of Indines
One on one fighters ala Street Fighter as a board game? Unbelievable but this game just works. It is all the strategy, tactics and mind games of 1v1 fighters but removes the requirement of manual dexterity. Throw in 30 totally different fighters, multiple stages, multiple modes of play, a co-op team battle, a dungeon crawler and much more not only is this an amazing game, it’s also great value for money.
Netrunner
Asymmetrical card game where cyberpunk ‘runners’ hack into the servers of mammoth mega-corporations. Beautifully thematic, incredibly well designed… Netrunner is astonishing and not a week goes by without me playing a game.
Tragedy Looper
Time travel and diabolical murders? Sign me up! This game is unlike anything else. It is a 3v1 game of deduction and misdirection as three players pit their witts against the all powerful puppet master. Can you guess their motives and stop them before time runs out for the very last time? Simply brilliant.
But my absolute favourite?
Mage Knight
I don’t know what is going on with Vlaada’s brain but it is a ridiculously fractured piece of genius. Mage Knight combines deck building, exploration, adventuring, puzzles and more into one of the most gloriously overwrought and complex games of all time. And it is a pearler. Not for everyone this is the kind of game that fills your dreams. On top of everything else, it is also a more than capable solo game… so much so I’ve had as much fun playing this game solo as I have had playing games at a table with other people. Just genius.
As a final note – If folks in the Melbourne area are looking for a place to play games then checkout the group that myself and members of The Fourth Player podcast run roughly once a month – https://www.facebook.com/groups/238753276328559/
Is the Melbourne Netrunner scene pretty much based out of Games Laboratory or do the players cycle through a handful of stores like in the MtG scene?
I wish I lived somewhere with a Netrunner scene. It really scratches a certain itch that no other game (at least, no other game that isn’t more expensive than a crack habit) comes close to.
I think both Games Lab and Good Games both have regular Netrunner players. However I just play regularly with a few local game journos and friends each Thursday at my local pub. It’s a small meta but a meta nevertheless. 🙂
Pandemic :co-op players against the disease.
Ghost Stories: co-op players against the invading ghosts. Hard at first!
Both great, and I love playing cooperatively with friends and family instead of against them. We all win or lose together.
finally registered so I could jump in to this discussion (no more guest posts stuck in moderation transit until the article hits page four :p)
I’ve had a typical Catan/Carcasonne group of players for a while, but we’re big into silly card games, so our regulars are Guillotine and Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre, though I’ve also started messing around a bit with Mag Blast for some of my overly dramatic sci-fi buddies. (nobody has had time to properly go Galaxy Trucking yet >.<) …also picked up Tentacle Bento at PAX because I know far too many perverts who would appreciate such a game.
I find Casa Grande is a good gateway boardgame for non-gamers; it has that semi-collaborative building dynamic without getting really mean like Ticket to Ride (or, for that matter, high level games of Catan), and doesn’t have too many things to track. Otherwise Nexus Ops is a good 2P skirmish game with a bit of a Risk-meets-Catan vibe… just be sure to get the old edition with the endearingly goofy fluorescent jelly-baby figurines and the more retro-futurism-inspired card designs – the current issue has very generic models and artwork.
Despite accumulating a bunch of other things, my group isn’t always reliable enough so I splash on lots of miniatures I can mess around with for display and painting if I don’t get to actually play with them; Super Dungeon Explore and Rivet Wars have really fun aesthetics, and I was tempted by Relic Knights at PAX, but will hold off until the second edition since it has similar issues to the original version of Super Dungeon Explore (and should see similar fixes – better ability referencing and iconography)… also I went a little insane at the Reaper stall and should have enough paints and minis to keep me going for a while ye~ ooh their web store has stuff they were short on over the weekend!.. and there’s a good deal on adventuring boxes…
[…and Mad Danny’s wallet was never heard from again.]
I joined a board game group about 6 months ago and find it so much fun. Mage Knight, Civilization, Prophecy, Fury of Dracula, Marvel Legendary, Firefly, Eclipse, Lords of Waterdeep, Eldritch Horror- so many different games with so many different feels/ strategies. Yet they’re all so immensely playable and fun if you have the right group of people all playing with the right mindset. Not sure you can really choose the wrong game if you’re playing with the right people.
The Forbidden Island is fun- you and your mates versus the game, each of you is a different class, and as such have their own special abilities. You task is to find all the treasures in the island and escape before it completely sinks, drowning everyone.
I forgot. My work group played that too.
It’s from the same designer as Pandemic and feels similar in many ways. There’s now a Forbidden Desert.
Hmm, interesting! May need to check it out soon.
Cutthroat Caverns is where it’s at.
I know you you’d that you don’t like card games. But you should try checking out a deck building game Like dominion or marvel legendary. They are awesome fun!
If you want a game to get people into a game, and they are worried they cant remember rules and all that – the best filler I have is called “No, Thanks”. It has 2 rules – when a card is turned up, on your turn you can either take the card, or say “No, Thanks” and put a token on it. And round it goes, until someone takes it (and gets all the tokens, which means they can reject more cards now – and tokens come off your final total).
You’re trying to get the lowest total possible, so you dont want the high cards. UNLESS it creates a sequence, because then you only count the lowest value. So, the highest card in the deck (35) comes up, and noone will want it, but maybe you have 34, so you dont mind. So you milk that sucker for all the tokens you can, because everyone else REALLY doesnt want it. They will also hate that you’re milking them, but not enough to take the card and screw themselves.
Its so simple, and yet so much fun. Its brilliant.
@trjn Do you write board game reviews for living? If not, you should. That was the greatest explanation of 7 Wonders. When we were living in a sharehouse it was a nightly ritual for everyone to come home, kick off their shoes and just ask “7 Wonders? Now? Yes? 7 Wonders?”
Thanks.
I don’t write anything at the moment but I have been playing with the idea of doing some board game related content for a while. There’s just a fair bit of ground work and whatnot that needs to happen first.
Also, 7 Wonders: Babel is coming out soon. I’m willing to fly to Belgium and go all Mission Impossible on Repos if that’s what it takes to get my hands on that.
Babel is an insta-purchase. Although, to be honest – I really like base 7 Wonders, no expansions. its so….pure.
More 7 Wonders is more good. I’m often playing with newer players, so I don’t often get to bust out Leaders and Cities together. When I do though… I get a little giddy.
That sounds like an awesome sharehouse.
Mage knight.
I’ve been into the hobby for about 6 months now and almost all of my video gaming has been replaced with board games.
Rather than drop $60 on a game that’ll get me 20 hours of play by myself, I can spend $50 and get the same amount of playtime, but three other people can join me and you can never be really 100% finished with it.
The best thing I’ve bought is The Resistance: Avalon. It’s sometimes a pain gathering 5 people to play it, but you can get a copy for $30 and it’s the most incredible little game ever. Work out who around you is lying or see if you can get away with being the liar. Then, when everyone feels nice and confident, throw in a handful of new abilities given to random people and watch everyone’s brains tick, glaring at everyone around the table and analyzing their every action. I’ve played a five minute game of Avalon that ended in huge laughs, and I’ve played a game for a solid hour and a half that finished with an enormous celebration. The biggest problem with Avalon is that it’s impossible to stop. After every round every person playing will sit quietly for 30 seconds, then start looking around and asking if we’re having another go. I don’t think I’ve ever played less than three games in a row.
My other biggest tip is a bit of a hidden gem called Escape: The Curse of the Temple. You won’t hear about it as much, but it is a ten minute long real-time dice-rolling co-op game that is unbelieveable fun. Everyone is sitting, shouting at each other and having a great stressful time.
Everyone needs to get in to board games!
Antoine Bauza is a legend of board game design: 7 Wonders, Ghost Stories, Takenoko, Tokaido, Rampage, Hanabi – the list goes on. Looking forward to Samurai Spirit – another instant buy for me.
Bauza is pretty amazing. I love all of his games except for Ghost Stories. It felt super anticlimactic when we finally won a game. We were all like “we…won? We won!”
Its great for boardgaming in Brisbane now – with our first board gaming cafe (GO Lounge at Stones Corner)
@trjn and I went there recently. Just walked past and discovered it. I think they hadn’t been open long at the time but it was pretty cool. Unfortunately we don’t live in Brisbane but I have a feeling when we’re next up there visiting family we’ll be heading there!
Yup – only been open since March I believe. Nice relaxed atmosphere, lots of games, friendly owner to help you out with everything!
Plus they’re basically around the corner from Lady Marmalade if you want a good breakfast before you go.
You also have LXG running out of the Bridge Club in Woolloongabba. Seriously wish that all this was happening a few years ago when I lived in Brisbane.
Like @freya said, we checked out the GO Lounge last time we were in Brisbane. Friendly staff who were happy to teach a game and a couple of people who just plonked themselves and started to play games. Really liked the place and would happily waste hours there. Especially if I could get some Agricola going. Love me some Agricola but never get to play it.
And Critical Mass every week at Chermside – not as big as LXG, but a very friendly group of people.
Chess!
I can’t wait to go through this whole comment thread and buy a bunch of new games!
Is Tic Tac Toe included? 😉
I was part of the indie boardgames showcase https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/117350444/el-luchador-fantastico-grande-tabletop-game
There is a whole WORLD of games outside of those party games, beautifully produced and designed, from simple to complex. We feature the best of them in every issue of Gamers Alliance Report. You can read the back issues for FREE at http://www.gamersalliance.com,
Family Business, Boss Monster, Cards against Humanity, Battlestar Galactica, Ticket to Ride, Powergrid, Nightfall, Munchkin, Epic Spell War: Duel at Mt Skyllfire, Robo Rally, Road Kill Rally, Apples to Apples, Junta (Old and New), Citadels and Kingsburg are some of the games we play. My group is getting quite big which makes Cards and Apples so enjoyable.
For anyone who doesn’t know (which probably isn’t many), TableTop with Wil Wheaton has done a lot to put quality boardgames into the spotlight. Check it out on YouTube if you haven’t already—I think they do a good job of explaining how the game works while also giving you a playthrough that is entertaining and not too time-consuming.
Based on the show, I have bought Betrayal at House on the Hill, and am interested in picking up Small World, Formula D, X-Wing and Alhambra.
Other than that, we play Catan (naturally) and Ra.
BoardGameGeek is a great resource too.
Formula D is a great Game. I’v eplayed it with a few friends and it really captures the feel of an F1 race. I would totally recommend it, but it does have a bit of a learning curve to be good at it.
I enjoy Tabletop – although they are limited in what they select to play (but they’re upfront about their rules, so thats cool). I do like that they show just how much fun these games are to play in a group of friends, and thats what they’re trying to get across (rather than a review of the game).
The Shut Up and Sit Down guys are awesome for checking new games out, love their work.
Also, check out Gloom – it doesn’t technically count as a board game as it involves cards, but what happens is that each player has a handful of cards that are a specific family. The object of the game is to make your family as miserable as possible, achieved by playing cards that describe certain negative events, accompanied by negative points. You can play a lot of these on your characters, and kill them off. This way, your negative point total is set in stone. At the same time, however, the other players will be applying positive events to your family in an attempt to raise your point total into positive figures. It’s great because each event card requires you to tell a short story about how your family came to experience the events, and this is where the fun lies- in improvising a hilarious story.
The definition of board game is pretty fuzzy these days. Most enthusiasts are willing to call any self-contained experience a board game.
So things like Magic the Gathering where you have to sort out your deck building outside of the game are not board games but card based games like Dominion are considered staples because everything you need is in the box.
Really, anything that isn’t wargaming, trading/living card games or RPGs counts as board games. It’s just easier that way.
Fair enough, it was more of a disclaimer to stop me from rustling anyone’s Jimmies about mentioning Gloom. I had to post it because it definitely deserves to be mentioned.
You could play a game of Gloom just fine with the basic packs, but there are expansion packs that add real estate and extra families too.
There are also loads of really fabulous games for really little kids to play. Orchard Toys make a whole bunch, and they’re a great way to get kids into the mechanics of playing board games – in particular just learning how to take turns (very challenging with a group of 3 year olds!)
http://www.orchardtoys.com/games
Board games are great!
Now days being an adult and time poor I find them being an amazing way of catching up with friends in person with some kids and they have a fun set of mechanics!
The thing with boardgames is the HUMAN interaction. That what makes them special and why, despite those prophets of dooms, boardgames continue to exist and, today, even prosper! Today, even the DESIGNERS get recognition, people like Sid Sackson, Stefan Feld, Reiner Knizia, Wofgang Kramer etc., a welcome change.