What are your favorite board games? Me and my friends love playing board games, but I get the feeling their tired of playing the same things. What do you guys usually play? My favorite board game of all time is HeroQuest. I never get tired of playing it. Also love Catan, Arkham Horror, Betrayal House on the Hill, Spyfall (great at parties)
We have a wider circle of friends who are boardgame enthusiasts, so we go through a rather lot of them. Some stick, some don’t. These we play regularly and have a lot of fun:
There are more that made an impression on me, I remember playing them a few times, but do not want to play them again (Do you know that feeling? :D ), eg. Eclipse (the galaxy-wide battle 4X preparation-takes-as-long-as-playing-and-playing-takes-a-whole-day strategy), Agricola, Mice and Mystics…
Brass Birmingham is a masterpiece. I absolutely love that game. It’s and absolutely heartbreak that my SO dislikes it.
Have you tried Lost Ruins of Arnak? It’s great!
I really like board games that don’t take that long to play. It’s a lot easier to rope your friends into a game that takes 30-40 minutes to play and is easy to learn rather than a game that takes 4+ hours.
Some that I’ve found
- Azul
- Sheriff of Nottingham
- Splendor
Azul is such a beautiful game too. That’s usually my intro for people new to board games.
I’ve been getting into Go/Baduk lately, it’s a shame how few people there are playing it in the US! Would love to play in-person instead of always online
Go is the most amazing game I know. I often regret not sticking with it as a kid. And IRL games are wonderful. The feeling of the stones on fingertips, the rattle of prisoners, the clicks and clacks when placing stones on the goban…
My current favs are Wingspan, Dune Imperium, and Deep Rock Galactic (both a great video game and board game!).
I realise this doesn’t really count (well, it does but you know), but chess. The rules are straightforward and it has infinite replayability. And you can play a game online any time you want in an instant.
Other boardgames I enjoy are Arkham Horror and Twilight Imperium, though I haven’t played either in a while.
Was into the tabletop simulator version of TI4 for a while. But even with automated set up and digital streamlining, the games are still 6-8 hours.
Love the game, but just don’t have time to play anymore.
Jeez, when you play a board game you really decided it’s an all day event. Both Arkham Horror and Twilight Imperium take forever every time I’ve played them
Try the Arkahm Horror Card Game. It moves quite a bit faster but shares much of the difficulty and has great stories.
I really love Spirit Island because i find the setting really nice. You are Spirits and need to destroy the invaders to your island. Another great part is that its a coop game and you can chose many different spirits with each different playstyle.
Feels like everyone I know has eventually ended up with their own copy. Hands down my favorite coop board game - it does a good job of minimizing the problem where one person effectively ends up playing for the whole table. Plus as you said the flavor is great.
There is a board game I played years ago at a comic shop, and I can never remember the name of it. I only played it once but it was super fun. Kind of like if Freelancer were a board game. You had a huge game board with a bunch of planets and you picked up missions. I dont remember what the win conditions were, but I remember I had a lot of fun with it.
I vaguely remember totalbiscuit and the gang play some games that would fit the description. Maybe worth a shot digging through his old stuff
Yeah, I’ll have to go and check some of those out, thanks for the suggestion!
That could have been:
• Xia, legends of a drift system
• Star Wars, outer rim
• Firefly
• Merchant of VenusThose are probably the most well-known games along that line 💁🏻♀️
Maybe it’s Xia or Merchant of Venus, those are activating something in my brain…
You had me at “Freelancer the board game”. I love that game, and what you’re describing sounds fun as hell
It was years ago, so my memory may be a bit foggy on it lol. I looked up the names someone else suggested and it was Xia: Legends of a Drift System. I remember it was a lot of fun, even if I was totally out of my depth the first time playing it
Hive is a modern, fun take on chess with a dynamic board. Its super fun and unlike chess its not figured out and people just don’t bother to throw a “book” at it. Every board game convention I try to find someone wirh Hive and it’d awesome!
My partner and I love playing Wingspan. A game about bird may not sound great but it’s full of strategy without being too hard to pick up. It’s competitive, but just total points at the end, you can’t screw each other up during play.
You can definitely screw people over via “hate drafting.” My group usually plays casually but sometimes we’ll agree beforehand to tryhard and then this happens somewhat often.
Wingspan is my favorite! I want to try the Asia expansion sometime soon, I really liked the Oceania one.
I came here to say Wingspan. I have gotten my friends and family to play it, and everyone likes it.
My second favorite game might be Scythe, another one of their games. They just make good stuff.
Ooh, we picked up the digital version of Scythe because it was a few dollars during a Steam sale, we’ve only played one game so far, but it almost immediately jumped onto our list of games we’re planning on buying.
Nice! It’s super good in real life. It feels like there’s so many things at the start since there are so many ways to win. But I really think the game is pretty smooth after a couple of turns. Every time I play it I have a good time — even if I lose.
I ended up buying the expansion that tells a story as you go. But unfortunately my friends and I haven’t had a good time to really play through it.
I like the ones that platform socialisation and banter - things like hidden role games, party games, etc. Less focus on the game’s strategy and more on the people you’re playing with.
Codenames (and Codenames Duel) is slower-paced but an engaging word-based game.
Just One is a simple word game that even drunk people can play (and likely have more fun in).
Detective Club is a bluffing hidden role game, where all of you are using weird art cards to match a prompt, but one of you didn’t have the prompt and is spinning bullshit - guess who!
Concept is Pictionary for people who can’t draw.
And my all time favourite*:
Telestrations, a blend of ‘the telephone game’ and illustrations. If you’re familiar with Gartic Phone, you already understand the gist. Every event that I’ve brought it out, it has been a good time.
My single favourite board game is the Game of Thrones. No dice. No luck. Pure tactics and the occasional alliance.
I have apparently terrible luck so games that involve dice, especially d6’s do not interest me.
Some of our favorites are Catan, power grid, ticket to ride, azul, and bananagrams.
Ticket to Ride is so fun.
We’ve been playing Camel Up a lot. It’s nice because there is some skill and a good amount of luck involved, so no matter your board game experience, you have a shot at winning.
Agricola is my favorite but it is pretty complex so we don’t play much.
Went through an Agricola period. It’s so fun but brutal.
Frosthaven! We’ve also really loved playing Quacks of Quedlinberg - it’s a great one for friends who are less into board games
I run a board game store so my list will be rather lengthy.
But short answer is Gaia Project… Until Age of Innovation drops
