General

Well, maybe Catan isn't as technical as I thought, the age range says 10+. I'm strongly considering getting this for one of my kids as a Christmas gift. Is this a good version?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&lo...

Catan is pretty easy
Ticket to Ride is also good and easy

King of Tokyo
Potion Explosion
Sheriff of Nottingham
Space Base
Sushi Go Party
Tiny Towns

Those are my suggestions based on your criteria of "lower learning criteria" but more advanced than your typical Hasbro, old school board games.

For Catan, if you ever want to play more than 4 players, I would get the original version. The 5-6 player extension is a separate purchase however. And you can expand it with other expansions that add complexity to the game.

Thanks for all of the suggestions, I'll start looking into those!

Sun wrote:

So I would need to buy this version:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&lo...

AND the 5-6 player Extension?

Catan and Risk are classics. Azul is also pretty good. If you're looking to have some simple fun, Quelf is something I recommend. You might also consider getting into some card games as well like Exploding Kittens and Fluxx

SwiftJAB wrote:
Came here to say Settlers of Catan. But Azul is good fun too. Very low learning curve for Azul. It's strategic, but easy to learn.

Quacks of Quedlinburg is fun, imo, but there is some learning involved. But once you get the hang of it, it's fairly fast paced and fun.

Ticket to Ride and King of Tokyo are excellent next level choices. Ticket to Ride works well for varying player counts, King of Tokyo really only shines with 4 or more.

I would say Potion Explosion is just a small step in complexity above those two.

Small World fits in that small step category too, and it scales really well from 2 to 5 players.

Carcassonne is another oldie but also a goodie, and I strongly prefer it to Catan. Technically plays up to 5 I believe, but feels pretty random with that many. Better with 2 or 3.

For a level slightly beyond those, Concordia is one of my favorites (if you can get past dat box art), and it plays pretty well at all player counts.

Check out Mexican Train Dominoes. It may not be "advanced" enough, but it is fun!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&lo...

There are a LOT of options these days. This is the hobby that I have been engrossed in for going on 9 years now.

For Catan...it's not *that* complicated but ultimately, I think it's a bit overrated in present day. Still a classic, still earned it's place as a well known game. However for me: the game is almost determined as soon as everyone places their pieces and becomes all about gaming the trade aspect of it. I could go on and on about it, but ultimately: there are better games out there.

Board games, like video games have come a LONG way in improvements. Now, there are different games for whatever it is that you want to accomplish. From the very simple to the very complex. From racing games, to efficiency engines, to negotiation, to Risk like 'dudes on a map' fighting games, card dueling games, cooperative games (where it is you against the game itself), social deduction and many more.

Sun has some great suggestions there. Let me add some and msg me if you want any questions answered. I could seriously talk about board games non stop so I'd be enjoying any conversation about it!

Stone Age (a very entry level euro style game that is STILL one of my favorites of all time)

Quacks of Quedlinberg (push your luck game where you have ingredients that you add to a bag and pull into your cauldron board. If you pull out too many white cherry bomb tokens, your pot explodes and you can only get points OR buy more ingredients for the next round rather than both. Has a good catchup mechanic so if someone falls behind; they get a big advantage to keep them in the game. You play over 8 rounds)

Ticket to Ride. Instead of Catan, THIS game is the one that is the must own. I've never had anyone play this and not LOVE it. Very simple but a blast to play.

Carcassonne: this is the other 'famous' game that is about laying tiles. It's good, but some people really love it. Start out by NOT playing the farmers if you get this.

No Thanks: a simple card game where you either take a card or play a chip. The cards are from 3-35. You remove 9 cards from the deck and flip the top one over. The first player either takes it or plays one of their chips that lets them skip. The chips are -1 points, which is good because you want the lowest score in this game. You play until the deck is out...then add up the value of the cards and subtract the number of chips you have for your score. The twist is that runs ONLY count the LOWEST card. So if you have the 30, 31, 32 and 34: you are only going to have 30 points. You can use this against someone to make them pay more chips and then you take it with a pile of chips on top! Simple but fun.

For Sale: in the same catagory as "No Thanks". You start with some money and are bidding for properties with the value of 1-30. The "1" is a cardboard box...and the "30" is a space station. You put 4 cards out and then auction. The first person out, gets half their money back and takes the LOWEST numbered card. The one who wins will get the highest card out of the 4, but pays their full bid. Once you have auctioned off all the properties; the 2nd half of the game starts where you use THOSE same properties to blind bid for 4 random checks that come out...valued ZERO to $15k. The lowest property offered in the blind bid takes the smallest check and so forth. Another simple and short one, but a blast to play!

There are a ton more, but I'll mention one more: Clank! A Deck Building Adventure. This one has one of my favorite mechanics in it: deck building. This is where you get some starter cards and buy more in a 'market' to add to your deck. Once you run out of cards, you shuffle the old cards and new together...and draw back up. But in Clank, you are going into a dungeon to get treasure. You use your cards to move and for added powers. If you make too much noise (or "clank") from using some of the cards: you add your color cubes to a bag. The dragon in the dungeon can be awakened and you will get dealt damage by drawing out of the bag the cubes you put in. So if you make a bunch of noise, you COULD take a lot of damage until the dragon goes back to sleep. It's an awesome game and not too complicated.

One last thing: YouTube has a TON of stuff. If you want help learning the games, "Watch It Played" is one of the best teachers online. "The Dice Tower" is also great for information on gaming when you are looking for new things.

Do they like card games? A deck of cards is cheap and doesn't take up space. We used to play Michigan Rummy for m&ms or pennies (supplied by the parent). Kids also liked Chase the Ace (again quarters supplied by parents) and Spoons.

Aside from that... these were some favorites growing up that are still fun today:

Uno
Mille Bornes
Pit
Yahtzee
Sequence
Scategories

How big is your family and what age range? They might help with more suggestions

There are 4 of us, kids are 11 and 12, going on 12 and 13 soon.

Thanks for all of the input so far everyone.

More suggestions then:

Blokus
Century Spice Road (or Golem Edition, whichever theme suits your fancy)
Lords of Waterdeep
Dice City
Flamecraft
Wingspan
Castles of Burgundy

Also, some places I order from that generally have pretty good pricing:

Miniaturemarket.com
Cardhaus.com
Gamenerdz.com

Used to order quite a bit from CoolStuffInc.com but they are often out of stock on the games I want when I think about buying them.

https://slickdeals.net/f/16200877-starts-nov-20-ta...

Target is having half off select board games tomorrow. Catan is one of them.

Yes, that’s the right version of Catan.

Quacks is a good family game as well and easy to teach and learn.

Flamecraft is new but also great.

@Scott

Board games on sale at Amazon

https://m.gametz.com/Hot_Deals/amazon-cyber-deals-...

Lots of stuff mentioned in this thread are in the sale, and some of them are also on the 3 for 2 sale so you could potentially save a ridiculous amount off retail for some of these

Is it worth getting Ticket to Ride: First Journey if two of the players will be 8 years old? Or better to just go for the full Ticket to Ride? Kind of want something that's fun but doesn't take 45-60 mins. 20-30 mins would be great due to attention spans.

You could try that or one of the new small ones like Ticket to Ride San Francisco that is supposed to be 15 minutes.

My family and I have a decent collection of board games, but I wouldn't call myself an expert. My wife and I have a 13, 9, and 7 year old. We enjoy the games where you work cooperatively to beat the game, or work at your own pace. Like:

Zombie Kidz Evolution - take turns moving into rooms of a school building to eliminate Zombies that spawn each turn. The cool part of this game is the achievement/growth system. Each time you play you can complete different challenges to progress your "level". After you reach the next level you open up numbered envelopes that add an additional piece to the game board the next time you play. So the gameplay evolves the more you play it.

Wingspan - this is the most peaceful game I've ever played. It's almost therapeutic. Take turns collecting birds / food / eggs to expand your own bird habitat. There aren't many options to ruin your opponent's builds. Points are tallied based on a combination of items in your habitat. The fun part is trying new ways to build, not seeing who the winner is at the end. It's worth mentioning that my youngest wants nothing to do with Wingspan, too much sitting and quiet thinking involved.

Ghost Fightin' Treasure Hunter - you play as a team to venture into rooms in a mansion and collect the treasure there. Each turn ghosts are randomly placed on the board and need to be cleared out in order to collect the treasure in a specific room. If too many ghosts are placed in the mansion it becomes haunted and your team loses. Light strategy, highly cooperative.

Codenames (Disney) - teams of two cooperate to give clues on what names/characters belong to their network of spies. Generally played on a 5x5 grid with one character/name in each space. Some of the squares belong to your team, some to the other team, some to no one's team, and one space is the you lose space. We play the Disney version a lot to cater to our youngest.

King/Queendomino - a cool take on classic dominoes. Each player takes turn drawing tiles to place on their kingdom. Your kingdom is played on a 5x5 grid. You can't break these boundaries. The more land tiles of the same type (water, grass, forest, etc.) you link in your grid, the higher the points you score.

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We also enjoy simple games that make us laugh:
Kids Against maturity - think Cards Against Humanity, but slightly less adult themed.

Avacado Smash - fast paced war-style card game

Sushi Go Party - fast-paced pass the deck around card game, you pull one card at a time and add it to your food pool. Points are tallied based on how many of the same types of food you have + bonus cards, etc. at the end

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My kids are just barely getting to the point where long, fantastical board games are starting to interest them. Something I am very excited for. My wife and I try our best to enjoy 2 player mode on some of these, but they're always better with more players. We don't have a dedicated play group, so the times we play some of my favorite board are few and far between:

The explanation on these would be huge! I highly recommend reading up on them if your family would be interested in this type of game.
Mage Knight
Legends of Andor
Heroscape


Almost all the games I listed have alternate versions or expansions, something I'm a huge sucker for.

incubus421 wrote:
Codenames is a lot of fun. But I've only played the original and the picture version. I didn't know there was a Disney version.

I went ahead and got Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride since they were on sale. Ended up giving it to the kids over the weekend as an "early Christmas present" since we were all itching for a new board game to play. We all love it, we've played it 4 times already! Settlers of Catan will have to wait until Christmas though.

I've made a note of every game that's been suggested here. Of the suggestions, these are at the top of my want list:

The Quacks of Quedlinburg
Tiny Towns
Carcassonne
Azul
Pit
No Thanks!
Exploding Kittens
Blokus
Flamecraft
King of Tokyo
Sequence
Small World
Stone Age
Clank! A Deck Building Adventure!

Scott wrote:

Quacks is available from Target right now and they have Buy 2, Get 1 Free. If you order 3 copies but then immediately cancel 2 of them, they prorate the discount so you would get it for 33% off which would be $26.66 + tax, and it would still ship for free in case you didn't have a redcard.

A lot of good suggestions so far. I'll add Splendor to the list. Glux is also pretty fun.

Thank you! I love Glux and everyone acts like it's boring. Theme wise? Definitely. But the game is a really great design

I'm sad I missed this thread earlier. You got some great games to look into so far Scott!

Throwing out a shameless plug for a sort of local FLGS with a good online store. Check out Boardlandia. They are typically 20% off MSRP and for the rest of the month they are an additional 15% off. Can't beat their service and prices IMHO.

rayzor6 wrote:

Glad someone else has actually played it! I misinterpreted the rules and accidentally created a variant. I just went with whoever has the most pieces (rather than the highest points) in a zone wins it. Ended up making corner 1s overpowered, but we got so used to that way that we just kept playing it with the wrong rules.

We ended up getting the following board/card games:

Ticket to Ride
We all enjoy this one. It's probably my wife's second favorite. I loved it the first couple times we played, but the more we've played it, the less I've enjoyed it. It's become really easy for me to complete all 3 of my destinations and rack up a huge score every single time we play. To make it more challenging, I've also been trying to break my personal record for longest continuous route. I got 44 the last time we played, and was very close to getting 45 (the max) but my daughter took the route I needed just to screw with me lol

Settlers of Catan
This one...has not been a hit so far. I don't know if we're playing it wrong or something, but this game is incredibly slow. The first time we played, we didn't know what we were doing and made very poor choices when placing our starter settlements, which resulted in a resource drought the entire game (we didn't even finish that one). The next time we played, we were much smarter with our starter settlements, but it still took FOREVER to get enough resources to actually do anything. It feels like this game could take hundreds of turns to actually complete. We even tried modifying the rules a bit to speed things up. Basically, we got rid of the rule where every time the robber is activated, if you have more than 7 resources in hand, you discard half rounded down. That rule is just brutal, and makes it too hard to actually collect what you need. Getting rid of it helped a little, but the game is still so slow. We barely ever buy cards, because we're so desperately trying to get enough resources just to do the basic things. Trading doesn't help much. We always either need the same resources, or, we're just too low on resources to be able to afford to trade anything.

Quacks of Quedlinburg
This one is probably the family favorite so far. We've played it a ton of times and nobody seems tired of it yet. It's definitely my wife's favorite, and probably both kids' as well. We're really enjoying how there's so many different ways to play. We started using the backside of the pot boards, so that we can use both of the droplets. We went through each "set" of chip boards, playing each one a couple times. Now, whenever we play, we pick a random set of chip boards, which makes for a unique game every time. The randomness can sometimes be frustrating, but overall, this is an extremely fun game!

Tiny Towns
We've only played this one a couple times, but we like it so far. The first time we played, we did the beginner recommendations. We didn't use monuments, and we were allowed to skip up to 2 resources cubes. The second time we played, we added the monuments, but kept the 2 skips. Honestly, I don't know that I'll ever want to play without that rule, lol. It's already challenging enough as it is to build a decent town on that tiny board. Getting stuck with unusable resources can be devastating. As for the monuments, we really liked them, but some of them seem way more powerful than others. I'm considering adding a house rule that we deal out 3 or 4 to each player for them to choose from, instead of just 2, to increase the chances of each player getting a very powerful monument. idk though, I don't like changing the games too much, in case any of us ever play with other people who are already familiar with the games and don't play that way.

King of Tokyo
This is my favorite so far. It feels like just the right mix of skill/strategy and luck. The kids both like it a lot too. My wife was mixed at first, but she's starting to enjoy it more. She said a lot of the concepts were more foreign to her because she doesn't play a lot of video games like we do (health, taking/dealing damage, etc), but she's catching on. I'd love to play this with 5-6 players, it seems like it would be way more fun if there were 2 cities that could be controlled. My only complaint about this game is the power cards. While I really enjoy the power cards and think they add a ton to the game variance, I feel like they weren't balanced well enough. There are some really crappy cards, like gain 1/2 victory points, that cost 3/4 energy, while some very powerful keep cards (e.g. poison) cost around the same. Then there are some cards that are just straight up too powerful to even be in the game IMO. I can't remember the name of it, but there's one card that lets you yield the city without taking any damage any time you would take damage, that's insane! IIRC, it only costs 4/5 energy too. Another card lets you always deal damage to everyone, even if you don't control the city. How did these cards get through play-testing? I'm thinking about just removing them, because they're almost an instant win as soon as somebody gets them. Another minor gripe is that a lot of power cards aren't clear on how they interact with or change the existing rules of the game. There have been several instances so far where I had to Google certain cards to try to find the answer.

Exploding Kittens
This one has also been a big hit. It's just good, easy fun, and the cards are hilarious.

Sushi Go
We're also loving this one. Every round goes so differently depending on the cards that are in the rotation. We just got the basic version. Is Sushi Go Party worth the upgrade? How is it different?

I still have a list of all of the games that were recommended so far. But, I'd be curious to hear which of those games stand out to any of you that you think we would like most, based on my reviews of the games above!

Scott wrote:

Sushi Go Party is just more variety. You can pick from loads of different kinds of cards to make up the deck, and it also goes up to 8 players.

Personally I think the base game is 100% fine. Picking and choosing different cards sounds great, but in practice, Sushi Go is a quick and simple game ‐ adding several minutes of setup and takedown time (to create the deck and separate it back out at the end) kind of makes it a little too much for what you get out of the game.

I am a huge fan of sushi Go, and I bought the party edition too... yet I consistently pull out the original almost every time.

Thanks for the feedback! I think we'll pass on the Party version then. We do love the base version though.

I meant to ask this in my write-ups above, but what is the point of having to say "sushi go!" whenever you use the chopsticks to keep 2 cards? It seems completely pointless to us, and we've just stopped doing it.

Also if you are wanting a bit more out of King of Tokyo, I highly recommend the Power Up expansion. It gives a unique deck of "evolution" powers to every monster, and you get an evolution on any turn where you have 3 or more heart dice (making heart dice no longer completely useless when you are in Tokyo).

We actually had a 6 player session of King of Tokyo yesterday. Honestly it's a little clunky with two monsters able to be in Tokyo. For me, it plays best at 4.

Scott wrote:

Forced silliness? I'm typically not a fan of rules that make you say or do something outside the scope of the game.

The only thing I can think of is that people might want to know you're dumping the chopsticks so that's why you are taking 2 instead of 1 card.

Awesome update! I was hoping Quacks would be a hit! King of Tokyo is really good. I just recently played in on Board Game Arena after many years and I'm like "Yeah....it's still very fun!"

I'll be upfront: I hate Catan. Like really hate it. Not in a hipster way but after playing so much of it: I see it's flaws big time and the 'good' parts are NOT strong at all. I am big in games with negotiation and the thought of trading resources (like the idea of trading properties in Monopoly) REALLY appealed to me.

However, I find that most of the time: you are either destined to win or lose by where you put your towns and roads. I have played many games where I didn't really do anything special and crushed the same seasoned opponents. To me, it kind of reminds me of Euchre. People in the midwest love Euchre, but there really isn't too much strategy. There is only knowledgeable players and those that don't really know the cards combos and probability.

Trading can also be very fragile with those that wheel and deal with reckless abandon and those that overanalyze every trade and view almost all as something NOT to do.

For Ticket to Ride....you GOTTA draw more destination tickets! That is one of the three things you can do on your turn. Part of the brilliance and simplicity of that game is making those routes for your initial cards and THEN trying to get other cards to complete easy ones (or the best: a ticket that you've already completed). Yes, there is a risk that you'll get three tickets and you HAVE to take one (which if incomplete is negative points) but no risk, no reward. And while I don't like the game that cutthroat: blocking paths and playing to avoid detection of WHERE you are going are key! If you find yourself enjoying it, I highly recommend the 1910 expansion. Get get bigger train cards AND there are (IMO) better routes available in those cards than in the base game. It makes the game better while changing really nothing.

On Tiny Towns: yes on all the house rule stuff. For the monuments: you can even deal out 4 and EVERYONE has access to building ANY of those that they want. The two skips are great. Are you guys calling the resources or using the cards?

Catan was incredibly important when it was released, but that was more than 25 years ago. If you haven't played any non-Hasbro/Milton Bradley board games, I can see that it might still be eye opening, but for people who have played other modern hobby games, it's kind of rough to go back to Catan. It's long for the amount of game that's in there, so it can feel like a chore to get through sometimes (especially with the robber).

Nowadays I get a lot more enjoyment out of a game like Concordia.

A few games I've found have been fun for my family (kids are 7 & 9):

1) Camel Up - someone here actually suggested it in the forum post linked to the Target deals. It's a simple to learn game that anyone can play. Betting on the camel race which is led by the dice. There's more to it, but you can learn it quickly.

2) Santorini (we have the NYC version) - build up your city and be the first to make it tall!

3) Dice Forge - you have dice, but you get to modify the faces. Manage different aspects while coming out on top with the most gold.

All have been easy enough to learn, I've found it's best if I go through first and learn the pieces/rules. We also have Marvel United which was a little too complicated for them - the idea is similar to King of Tokyo (I believe) with Marvel characters.

benstylus wrote:

That sounds pretty cool, I added it to the list!

rayzor6 wrote:

Trading doesn't appeal to me very much. I'm ok with a little bit, but I don't think I'll typically like games that require a ton of it.


Yeah, that doesn't sound great. Maybe if we played more and all got better at it, this would begin to stand out to me. But so far, all that stands out is how slow and tedious it is.


I was going to mention drawing more destination tickets, guess I forgot. So, two things on that. 1) I really haven't needed to. Like I said, I've been racking up huge scores without extra tickets. I typically complete all 3 of the random tickets I get in the beginning of the game and easily score 110+ points every round. I think my highest was 139. 2) Usually, by the time I've completed all 3 of the tickets I was dealt, I'm fairly low on train pieces, so there's a good chance I just won't have enough pieces to complete additional destinations, unless they're extremely close to the ones I've already completed. I guess I could just go for it, and occasionally take the point loss.


We do a little bit of that, but not too much.


This looks pretty good, I added it to the list. I didn't think to mention it earlier, but I hate how small the cards are. They're so hard to shuffle! This expansion seems worth it for the bigger cards alone.


I like the idea of everyone having access to build any of the 4 selected monuments

We're calling out resources. I think the cards are only for solo play.

Here are some games we played over the holidays that were enjoyable and good family games:

7 Wonders (been years since we've played this and brought it out at the request of a friend...played just the base game and forgot how simple the game is, but lots of trade-off decision making...it's a card drafting game and a step-up from Sushi Go)
Cubitos (dice pool building game where you're racing around a board...a lot of people compare it to Quacks)
Flamecraft (resource gathering / combo-ing game)
Just One (simple word game but scales nicely and good for the non-board game crowd)
Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest
Marvel Remix (very fast game and easy to teach)