Board Game Players Thread: Recommendations for Game Nights New and Old.

[greedostick]

Everytime my lady forces me to go to the mall, which is at least twice a week, we always go in the board game store. All the game look right up my alley these days. Deep and involving, managing resources, and such. It looks like games have came a long way since my Clue, and Don't Break the Ice days.

We always look at these games, and never get one because they normally require 4 people to be fun, which is kind of a pain getting players as you get older. We did however get Cards Against Humanity last year, which was a smart purchase, but I am attracted to the deep games. Pandemic looks cool, Forbidden Island looks fun, although less involved, Catan was a blast on XBL as was Carsiconne a few years back. I'm sure the board game version are great.

The mall prices are ridiculous, as expected. So today I was thinking and decided to research amazon. My girl mentioned a board game bar just down the road, and we decided to try and get a game night going once a month. There is so much good looking stuff on amazon, I didn't realize board games were so popular. Stuff like...

Tokaido, King of Tokyo, Fief, Descent, Marco Polo, Gates of Yolang, exploding kittens, and so many others I am really wanting to play a lot.

Just curious if anyone has any recommendations? Stuff that is likely for beginners, and girls could get into, and even that are fun with 2 players if no one else is around. And then some deep, resource management type games.

 

[SudoShinji]

I just bought the new MTG board game and did a test run with my old lady who doesn't play MTG or any other tabletop game and she understood it by the end of our game. Pretty fun and not too long, less rules than magic but still enough to keep things interesting and customizable. I have my game group coming over tomorrow to put it through its paces.

 

[BLEAGH]

One of my all time favorites is Samurai by Reiner Knizia. It's kinda expensive but I think Fantasy Flight is doing a reprint soon.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3/samurai

Tigris and Euphrates, also by Knizia, is amazing. Fantasy Flight just did a reprint of it. In my opinion this is the best board game ever made.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/42/tigris-euphrates

Ticket to Ride (any version) is great for getting people into modern board games when they are used to monopoly, clue, sorry, etc.


I really like Arkham Horror, but you really need some hardcore peeps with hours to spend to have fun with it and its many expansions.

Some really great teamwork games I like are Elder Sign (same theme as Arkham Horror), Forbidden Desert, Forbidden Island, Pandemic, Shadows over Camelot (someone ends up being a traitor!), and The Resistance (This is incredibly fun with the right group)

Coop team games are great for when you have people that don't want to be competitive or feel like they always lose.

I thought cards against humanity got old real fast after a few plays. Glenn Beck jokes are only funny for so long.

 

[greedostick]

One of my all time favorites is Samurai by Reiner Knizia. It's kinda expensive but I think Fantasy Flight is doing a reprint soon.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3/samurai

Tigris and Euphrates, also by Knizia, is amazing. Fantasy Flight just did a reprint of it. In my opinion this is the best board game ever made.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/42/tigris-euphrates

Ticket to Ride (any version) is great for getting people into modern board games when they are used to monopoly, clue, sorry, etc.


I really like Arkham Horror, but you really need some hardcore peeps with hours to spend to have fun with it and its many expansions.

Some really great teamwork games I like are Elder Sign (same theme as Arkham Horror), Forbidden Desert, Forbidden Island, Pandemic, Shadows over Camelot (someone ends up being a traitor!), and The Resistance (This is incredibly fun with the right group)

Coop team games are great for when you have people that don't want to be competitive or feel like they always lose.

I thought cards against humanity got old real fast after a few plays. Glenn Beck jokes are only funny for so long.

thanks for the recommendations. I already had that samurai game in my amazon want list, and the tigris game looks good.

Ticket to ride is probably on my get sooner than later list, as it looks like a good bridge game for all audiences, which you confirmed.

I'll probably be getting Jenga Donkey Kong as well, because without Jenga, there is no party, at least that's how a lot of people feel. I'm going to have to lure unsuspecting friends over with Jenga, and then bust out some real shit.

 

[ForeverSublime]

On an impulse, I opted for Forbidden Desert instead of Forbidden Island, and after looking at reviews long after the fact I'm glad I did. I've definitely enjoyed playing it in the couples format, and for a long time I did better playing with someone else than playing solitaire. Like arcade games, I enjoy quicker board games, and Forbidden Desert fits that bill. I can't actually speak for Island, but I'd say not to discount Desert.

Also, check out Escape From The Cursed Temple. It's 10 minutes long, period. It's frantic and cooperative, and can also be played drunk.

As far as party games go, I'm starting to see advantages to Say Anything as a step up from Cards Against Humanity. CAH gives you specific options to choose from and you could get a "bad hand", but with Say Anything you're coming up with your own jokes every round. That helps keep the jokes fresh and you can try to sway the judge with an inside joke if you're not the most clever cat in the room.

Also, be sure to check online prices with major retailers. Target has King of Tokyo for $50 at the store, but $25 online (and free shipping, and any discount codes you may have).

 

[ForeverSublime]

Placing this as a separate post -

I'm not a big managing resources type of guy, so not sure about that perspective. One resource game that looked interesting to me was Islebound. It looked like a good mix of determinism, luck, and resource engine building made simple.

http://www.redravengames.com/

 

[Xian Xi]

I really enjoyed playing "Concept" with the family. It's basically charades in a board game form, you use visual cues to help convey the word or phrase.

Here's a video showing it. Keep in mind that it's hard to find them cheaper than $30.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFPYiUaGJNk

 

[vagabond]

Do yourself a favor and join boardgamegeek.com. It has links to everything you ever need. A recommendation from myself, if you like deck-building games like Dominion, is to try Puzzle Strike. It's basically that mixed with Super Puzzle Fighter II and you draw cardboard poker chips from a bag instead of shuffling a card deck over and over. Amazing game.

 

[NeoSneth]

CodeNames
plays well with 4-8. We spent about 6 hours playing this during our last game night. People couldn't get enough.

King of Tokyo with Power Up expansion.
Plays well with 3-6. Great gateway game into modern gaming. Fast games.

Takenoko
Cute game. Starting to get a little more in depth. Great art and pacing. Not a long game.

Ticket to Ride
Nother gateway game. Probably the second lightest Train game. This one is building train routes while managing a Rummy deck of cards.

TransAmerica
Super simple Train game that introduces people to scoring tracks.

Carcassonne
This is THE game people use to introduce new people to gaming. It's not my thing because of the scoring, but many use it are their gateway game.

Pandemic
Cooperative game. This is not a hard cooperative game. It's great when some people are too competitive. Watch out for people "quarterbacking"....people that try to run the game themselves.




These are not all my favorite games, but they are good games. My favorites from the last year are:
Legendary Encounters
Good Cop Bad Cop
Quarriors. or DiceMasters if you are into collecting.
Mars Attacks - dice game

 

[bloodycelt]

Arkham Horror is sort of an RPG-lite, but its amazing, and well worth getting. It seems daunting, but you can generally get new players in, so long as one player sort of acts as "GM" doing the various book keeping/tracking of things, and the monster movement. Its Co-Op like Pandemic. (Pandemic btw gets old quickly since there usually is only one optmial way of doing things in the game).

You can also get Ticket to Ride on iPad.

Other cool games:

• Bang! — A spaghetti western shootout card game (comes in English and Italian).
• Settlers of Catan, the third game of the intro to board games trio.
• Archipelego — Its a newer game, but what I like about it is it comes with 3 different game lengths, and it has a lot of ways to play the game, sort of like Settlers, but less random, and more things to do.
• Puerto Rico — Another staple, this is a slave-trangle trade totally non pc economics card game (with brown tokens to represent your "workers").
• Power Grid — Hard to explain, but its basically an economic game involving fuel and power plants.
• Flux — Fast paced silly card game. Perfect for casual party goers, as the rules are simple, and its silly.
• Cards against Humanity — Excellent game, its like the War Room in card game format.

 

[ForeverSublime]

I really enjoyed playing "Concept" with the family. It's basically charades in a board game form, you use visual cues to help convey the word or phrase.

Here's a video showing it. Keep in mind that it's hard to find them cheaper than $30.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFPYiUaGJNk

Nice! Thanks for the rec.

 

[Renmauzo]

I really find the co-op nature of Pandemic to be refreshing. Don't get me wrong, I love some spirited rounds of Catan: Cities & Knights or Seafarers, but playing to beat a common enemy is a great change of pace from most individually competitive board games.
One of my all time faves though (and it's tough to get now, especially sub 150$) Hero's Quest. It's also co-operative, and I always end up being the villain, but it's great fun.

 

[greedostick]

Arkham Horror is sort of an RPG-lite, but its amazing, and well worth getting. It seems daunting, but you can generally get new players in, so long as one player sort of acts as "GM" doing the various book keeping/tracking of things, and the monster movement. Its Co-Op like Pandemic. (Pandemic btw gets old quickly since there usually is only one optmial way of doing things in the game).

You can also get Ticket to Ride on iPad.

Other cool games:

• Bang! — A spaghetti western shootout card game (comes in English and Italian).
• Settlers of Catan, the third game of the intro to board games trio.
• Archipelego — Its a newer game, but what I like about it is it comes with 3 different game lengths, and it has a lot of ways to play the game, sort of like Settlers, but less random, and more things to do.
• Puerto Rico — Another staple, this is a slave-trangle trade totally non pc economics card game (with brown tokens to represent your "workers").
• Power Grid — Hard to explain, but its basically an economic game involving fuel and power plants.
• Flux — Fast paced silly card game. Perfect for casual party goers, as the rules are simple, and its silly.
• Cards against Humanity — Excellent game, its like the War Room in card game format.

Nice recommendations! Thanks!

 

[oliverclaude]

There are tons of good titles, mostly you can rely on the "Spiel des Jahres" choices to lay your hands on interesting material. Here's their homepage, it's in English.

 

[NeoSneth]

At this point, Eldritch Horror is much safer game than Arkham Horror. Arkham is a complex 6-8 hr game.
Eldritch Horror is essentially an evolution of Arkham Horror into a more steamlined game.

I like both of these, but I thought they might be a little heavy for people starting out. They can really get people into gaming if a person knows how to play. They do the Lovecraft setting better than anyone.

 

[Mega]

Jaipur is a fun two-player game. You compete against the other player to see who can be the better merchant. Simple to learn and the gameplay remains fairly light, no ultra competitiveness if your lady hates that sort of thing.

Mr. Jack is another one of my go-to 2-player games. Easy to learn. One person plays Jack the Ripper disguised as one of 8 characters on the board while trying to make his way off the board to win the game. The other plays an investigator trying to figure out Jack's identity through a process of elimination and intuition. It's harder to win as Jack but it's still fun to try and outwit the investigator.

I highly recommend Smash Up. Can be played with up to 4 players, but still works great with just 2. There are eight 20-card minion decks, each with a theme like Ninjas, Pirates, Aliens, Zombies, etc. Each player combines two decks to form their main deck and tries to invade and conquer base cards on the playing field in order to win the game. Draw a card, play a minion card, play an action card. Basic structure but tons of different strategies especially with synergy between various deck mask-ups and each one having different strengths (eg. zombies bring back lots of minions from the discard pile). The expansions really make the game shine, add variety and they're a pretty good value at 4 new decks each. Some really cool new themes too: Bear Cavalry, Steampunks, Super Spies, Time Travelers. The Chtulhu expansion is probably the only one to avoid because most of those decks have a mechanic players may not like, but I really think they're worth having if you like HP Lovecraft. The card art in that set (and all the rest) is amazing, sometimes I just look at it in between turns. So yeah, get this.

 

[HDRchampion]

I bought a bunch of board games during the black friday sale. They had them really really cheap. There was also some buy 2 get 1 free deals too. Sadly they are back to being expensive again.

Got Pandemic, Game of Thrones, Ticket to Ride Europe, Love Letter, Sushi Go, Jamaica, King of Tokyo, Shadows over Camelot, & Munchkins....Was going to pickup Dominion & 7 wonders but was too slow.

So far we played King of Tokyo & Sushi Go...Very easy to play w/ some strategy but a lot of fun. I think we are playing Love Letter next weekend or maybe King of Tokyo again.

With a big group i would also recommend Resistance/ Avalon.

 

[bloodycelt]

Rot's post in War Room reminded me: Flame War is an amazing quick game that captures forum trolling fairly well.

 

[Xian Xi]

Nice! Thanks for the rec.

Ya dude, it's a really fun version. We're going to be playing it again for the family christmas party.

 

[wataru330]

This game is teens and up only; hilarity and embarrassment may ensue.

Also, the card game (use regular playing cards) Frustration. Hella fun.

http://cgcredbeech.com/cgcredbeech/FCG.html


Fun for the whole family; in our modified rule set, both 2s and Jokers are wild, and we keep runs in suits.

 

[greedostick]

I picked up forbidden desert off Amazon, got it today. Read over the instructions, and it sounds really fun. Going to test it out this weekend.

Been doing some research, found some pretty fun looking games. These are some of the ones on the top of my want list.

I also noticed, there are a lot of these games on the android and iphone parket. Le Havre is on there too, and I picked it up. It's a lot of fun.

Yeah.. Lots of videos, but some of these obscure games look amazing.

 

[greedostick]

 

[greedostick]

Thought I would bump this and see if anyone discovered any fun board games.

I went to a bar this weekend called kingmaker, and played a bunch of games. I'll link some videos below.

Boss Monster is pretty fun. It's a card game with old nintendo looking graphics on the cards. A lot of which resemble character from various games like double dragon, mario, and castlevania.

Then I discovered Splendor. Oh Man, this game is great. It has the perfect balance of easy to pick up, hard to master. It's a new addiction. And there is a phone app, and it's on Steam.

They're opening yet another new board game bar about a 2 min drive from me called Table Top Cafe. Grand opening is tomorrow. I think I've found a new hobby that doesn't involve video games. It's weird.

 

[bloodycelt]

Have you tried out Castle Dice?
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/129320/castle-dice

TragiLooper - A time travel murder mystery game. (Its what a Higarushi board game would look like).
A Study in Emerald - A secret agent management game, with the bonus that one side is working for the great old ones. (And Niel Gaiman was involved with it).
Shadow Hunters - Sort of similar to Bang! but more unique roles with a mechanic to help people figure out who is who. Unlike Bang! multiple people can win at the same time.

 

[FilthyRear]

Have you tried out Castle Dice?

Must be hard to throw dice when your throwing hand is shaped like a hook after that stroke.