I’m looking for a table top board game for our family to play. We’ve burned through, and aged out of, Clue, Monopoly, and many of the old standards. Its me, my wife, and our 3 teenaged daughters.
We’ve had a ton of fun with Catan, Dixit, and Mysterium , and still have rousing D&D sessions. I’m just looking for a new experience.
We’re pretty flexible, but co-op games seem to lessen the stress of competitiveness. Storytelling is fun, but can be too taxing. jigsaw puzzles were a no go, and we’re kinds on the fence about Cards against humanity, so appropriate is good.
What games have made your family game nights a success?
If you liked Catan, then Dominion might work well. It’s competitive, but with very little direct player interaction (although some of the expansions like Intrigue do add this). The biggest stumbling block is that there are a lot of cards to read, but the actual gameplay is pretty simple.
I’ll also second Little Nemo’s suggestion of Machi Koro (and the more involved Seven Wonders), and Munch’s suggestions of Pandemic, Forbidden Island, and Ticket to Ride.
Ticket to Ride is excellent, and great for time, as well.
Carcassonne is the other Catan-like game you and the family might enjoy. There are a lot of different versions of it floating around, so when you get tired of one version, you can always pull out another.
Pandemic is a great game because the players are united against the game itself. So everyone can chip in with advice and nobody gets knocked out early. No dice - highly skilful.
A game takes about 45 minutes, which is also convenient.
However it is limited to 4 players (buy two copies!)
There are also railway games like 1830 where you start up companies, lay track, buy trains and aim to be the richest. Completely skilful (no dice.)
One game takes at least couple of hours.
2-6 players.
I’ve played both games for years, with all standards and ages.
If your family play D&D, I can suggest the following two games which might ease you into the more complex style of board games while maintaining a familiar framework/setting.
Anno Domini is an absolute riot. Not really technically a “board game”, as it’s more based on cards, but it’s just a super excellent card game, in all its variants. The goal is to line up historical events in the right order. Each player takes turns setting cards of theirs down and sorting them into the row of other cards, based on when the event listed took place. If someone thinks someone else got something wrong, they can “doubt” the order, at which point all the cards are flipped upside down, showing their actual date. If it’s correct, the doubter draws more cards. If it’s wrong, the last person to set a card draws more cards. Knowledge of history is a little helpful, but not required, as many of the events listed are very obscure. It’s more about bluffing and guesswork.
I’ll second (or third, or whatever) Ticket to Ride, Scythe, and Carcassonne, and add Concordia as another suggestion. Maxes out at 5 players (some people believe it plays best with 4 but I think 5 is fine, just slightly more downtime), takes 2-3 hours to play, easy to pick up and have a decent game but with more involving strategy to consider if you want to maximise your score.
Check out youtube for examples of games being played. It can give you an idea if it’s a game you’ll like without you having to shell out for every game in the store. Wil Wheaton’s Tabletop-series have a ton of fun games presented with a round played by a lot of fun people.
Betrayal at House on the Hill has a delighful combination of co-op and player v. player as you start by exploring a really creepy mansion as completely equal explorers only to, eventually, discover a random player has a random horrible secret and evil intents, at which point that one player is in a battle of wits or force or something depending on the scenario with all the others.
Castle Panic is a fantastic co-op, tower-defense board game. Together you defend the six towers of your castle against a nonstop horde of orcs, goblins, and trolls, with the occasional giant rolling rock or orcish war leader or whatnot thrown in to mix things up. There’s limited but crucial trading, there’s thinking ahead, there’s oh shit moments when a couple of bad draws or dice rolls make you teeter on the edge of losing. I strongly recommend it.
Betrayal at House on the Hill was going to by my suggestion as well. It’s mostly co-op, and with the “betrayal” being random, it really cuts down on drama if your family can get over-competitive.
Instead of Castle Ravenloft I’d recommend Temple of Elemental Evil. It uses the same system as Ravenloft, but it adds on a campaign mode. My son and I play both of those and just like ToEE more.
Another vote for Fury of Dracula, although it went out of print recently so get it while you can. (Great game, just some weird stuff with the licensing causing it to be unavailable.) It’s a 4 against 1 game which is really well balanced. It seems like it always comes down to a turn or two for whether Dracula or the hunters will win.
If you like painting miniatures, both the above games (as well as Ravenloft) have minis that are really fun to paint.
Other favorites in my family are Five Tribes, Fortune and Glory, and Small World.
