Gaming

Cosmic encounter was always my favorite in college. Not popular enough that I can find local people to play now though.

Lately our group has been playing a lot of Betrayal at House on the Hill, wish I would have got a copy of Betrayal Legacy when it was in print. Other ones in the current rotation are Root (which I adore), and Call to Adventure. I really want to give Twilight Imperium a go, but I haven't convinced enough friends yet haha.

My city is an astoundingly good game. My wife and I are playing it basically every weekend at the moment. Super easy to learn, tactically rich, the art is lovely and you make your own city story to some extent. It's just wonderful.

I really like BattleCon, a fighting game-inspired card/board game that did a really good job translating the mindgames and oki into a turn-based format. They had an online version of it but sadly halted development because they couldn't figure out how to monetize it.

I also love me some good ol' Riichi Mahjong. There's a group that brings tiles to fighting game tournaments since these are becoming cons in disguise, I got some nice hands at Combo Breaker this year.

It might be Marrakech now that I think about it. It's not too time taking and friendly to casual players yet not completely luck based. Also placing the rugs just feel so good. Are there other board games that comes with neat little items like Marrakech?

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.

Frosthaven! We’ve also really loved playing Quacks of Quedlinberg - it’s a great one for friends who are less into board games

My favorite, and most played game is absolutely Arboretum.

It plays quick, it's small enough to stash in a bag, it's easy to teach, and it feels like it has endless play and variation. The game also lets me do one of my favorite things in a board game, which is let me go for high risk high reward "shoot the moon" strategies. Absolutely lovely bit of tension and backstabbing fun, but concentrated all into the reveals right at the end so it doesn't drag the entire experience. Great at every player count, especially at 2 players which is important given that most of my board gaming is just with my wife.

Plus you get to look at lovely art of trees while you playing (with the original edition at least, the newer one has worse art IMHO).

Magic Maze is a collaborative game that’s always fun. Everything is done in “silence” because you’re unable to consult with each other to escape the maze. Warning is that it could get quite chaotic

For several years we regularly played my roommates Battlestar Galactica Game. Sadly now I don't have the group for board games anymore.

We've really been enjoying Distilled a lot. It's really engaging. The irony is that it's really hard to play while drunk, but the theme of the game is distilling alcohol, so you have to drink while playing... Right?

I've also found a little indie card game called Wizards of the Grimoire that is absolutely fantastic. It scratches that Mtg itch, but without all the being poor part.

Me and my SO plays Caracassone alot 😄 and me and my brother plays War of the ring when we manage to find time.

Both are really fun in diffrent ways

Some of our favorites are Catan, power grid, ticket to ride, azul, and bananagrams.

Really enjoying Glass Road at the moment, want to check out more Rosenberg, but they're all out of stock and the big boxes seem extortionate on UK eBay. Have pre-ordered Nusfjord, reprint hopefully arriving in September :/

Never been much for boardgames, but the one I've always loved is Atmosfear. We had the old DVD version when I was a kid and it was just great.

It never takes too long due to the timer. No playtrough is the same due to the randomisation. And the way you need to work together against the evil guy on the DVD or everyone looses, while having work against each other to win over other players is just so well done. It's also complex enough to stay interesting, but not too complex to make it hard to play for non-die hard boardgame players.

Unfortunately I don't play as much as I use too, there are only 2 of us now, so mostly we play card games now. When the kids were still living at home - I think the Classic Clue board game was probably what we played the most. Risk, and Monopoly were also in the mix quite a bit.

I have a huge shelf of shamepportunity (see what I did there? Now no one can correct me! 🤣) what I like vs what I get to play with my friends/SO vary greatly.

Some of my favorites

• Undaunted Normandy
• Trails (my SO and I play this one a lot at bars)
• Tak, a lovely abstract strategy game
• Spire's End and Spire's End Hildegard
• March of the Ants
• Cosmic Frog

My favorites shift far too often, but Twilight Imperium and Merchants & Marauders are aleays ones I get to the table when given the chance.

I've fallen in love with Arkham Horror The Card Game. It's difficult and can be played solo if I really feel the need.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/arkham-horror-the-card-game/

My group doesn't have much time for board games, so we like 5 Minute Dungeon. The 5 minutes is a limit using a timer, and it's co-op so it's everyone against the clock.

My favorite long game (as in over a couple of hours) is Merchant of Venus. For shorter games I like Azul, Splendor, 7 Wonders Duel, That's Pretty Clever, Lost Cities R&W, Star Realms, and more.

For a newer board game I like Ticket To Ride, especially the Rails and Sails edition but I'm most partial to the old Avalon Hill games like Titan and Merchant of Venus.

I've been absolutely loving a couple of the Button Shy games at the moment! They're really nice because I can just slip them into my work bag and play them at lunch. In particular, I've been playing a fair bit of Sprawlopolis and Food Chain Island, both of which are really great solo games.

With other people, I've been playing a whole lot of Spirit Island, which is probably one of my all-time favorites. The amount of diversity in how each of the spirits play is mind-boggling and makes every game feel very different. My regular play-group is also getting pretty excited for the new expansion that's coming out in the next couple of months.

I'm mostly into deck builders and I haven't seen these mentioned before so I'll drop two of my favourites Dune: Imperium and (TBOI:) Four Souls! Also an honorable mention to Dominion but I haven't played that in a while.

Carcassonne and Rummikub.

I have very little experience with board games so I'm using this thread for ideas to try out. But I did play Betrayal and liked it so I'll say that one is my favorite.