Mousetrap, because I've never once been with a group of kids in a house where that game was brought out that ever resulted in us actually playing the game.
Stratego, because I'm bad at chess and bad at Stratego but at least I can imagine that I could "do something different next time" and want to play again.
Risk, because by the time we've taken the six hours to set up the game its time for everybody to go home. So nobody gets angry because they were doing poorly or losing.
I have gotten very angry at Risk because we were playing with the (house?) rule that when one player finishes off another player, they get all their cards, and one guy who was losing intentionally threw to another.
Wingspan. The theme is cute and has broad appeal, the gameplay is satisfying, and it's the only reason I know anything about birds.
Wingspan rules. It does such a good job balancing long-term planning with on the fly decision making and just enough randomness
Hopefully y'all already know what I'm gonna say.
Weiqi, Baduk, I'm talkin Go, babey. I've missed over-the-board matches this year and as soon as I can I wanna get to the local group meetup.
Why you should play go:
- It's hard
- The stones feel nice
- You're a weeb
- You like losing
- Vague Sun Tzu-type ideas about revolutionary strategy
- Please just play it
The problem with Ticket to Ride is that if often feels like everybody is just playing solitaire. You never really get any player interaction until near the end when you start running out of space, and even it's rarely intentional when people get blocked.
Somebody recommend me a better train game that isnt 18XX
but, have you considered that it includes some tiny colourful little trains? checkmate lib
Gloomhaven is a pricey game but it's one of my favorite ones I've ever played. Spent a whole year going to a friend's house every Sunday and playing it and we really enjoyed filling out the map and learning about the world. The price is easier to swallow if you split it between a few people and it's a legacy game so the longer you play the more badass the characters get.
Cosmic Encounter. It's a hard one to describe but it's mostly card based with several different decks that work differently and there's usually about three or more rule modifiers going on at once. It's chaotic but not entirely random, if you're good you know how many of certain cards are in whatever deck and can at least guess what isn't out there. You can also alliance and backstab if needed, you can even share wins. It's a hard one to describe as I said
Yeah...that's not the worst way to put it. I lived in a place that played several games daily. It's aost got the same kind of learning curve as a roguelike. Seems random as hell at first but the more you know it the more it becomes skill based.
A few of my favourites at the moment...
Inis is super dope. It's a dudes on a map game based in medieval Ireland. Your turns are only done with a deck of cards that's drafted at the start of each round - there's not many cards, and since you'll see most of them during the draft, you'll have a good sense of who has what. Conflict is usually unavoidable and based on cards played, but it's handled in a very fluid way - there's no dice rolls, and players can discuss and decide when to stop fighting whenever. It's a great twist on a war game that ends up being very fluid and holistic but still very tense. Most importantly the card art is a total acid trip - strong recommend all round
War of the Ring is pretty well regarded as one of the best 2-player strategy games out there. Super fluffy, good vs evil, epic scale, just all around top notch. Must play for anyone who likes Tolkein
Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion is a blast. Co-op narrative dungeon crawler with novel combat mechanics and character building. It's a more manageable version of the larger game, and much quicker to set up while still giving a ton of content. Basically the best board game RPG out there right now.
Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective is basically a collaborative story where you solve a mystery. No board, you read through a narrative choose-your-own-adventure style, but very engaging and fun if you're into solving them murders
Diplomacy is also super fun. We had a game going but then enough people just kinda left themselves hanging that it was pointless. I'd try again, but people have to actually want to play. You make like one move a week and the real game happens in chat.
Ooh these sound pretty interesting, is the first one a co-operative game?
Our household was looking at diving into Gloomhaven but we have some shopping around to do.
