Imagine is one of the favourite games in my IRL friend group whenever we get together. It’s basically Alias, but instead of explaining the word verbally, you use transparent cards with shapes drawn on them that you can overlap and move around. It’s chill, fun, and fits any group size.
Calico is my personal favourite, because the concept of making a kitty blanket is just too cute to pass on.
P. S. The link isn’t where I bought the game - I just googled the English version and posted the first link I found.
One I haven’t seen mentioned is Puerto Rico. One thing I like is there is essentially no random chance to this game; everything that happens is a result of choices you or your opponents make.
I am glad Tango Gameworks found a new home. As for Xbox, I am no longer buying any new games for it and I am boycotting Microsoft for a myriad of reasons.
Tiny Epic Zombies is a cooperate, often hilarious, always satisfying zombie survival simulator. +Tiny Epic Dinosaurs is a mildly competitive, generally delightful Jurassic Park / Petting zoo simulator.
Tiny Epic pirates is a crunchy but quick pirate simulator where most interactions are your human controlled pirates evading the automated Navy while racing for loot.
The Fast and the Furious (board game) is a fantastic quick co-op romp.
Here to There is a story driven light economy game ever the focus is on building your economy engine to unlock the next interesting story twist.
Machi Koro lacks a co-op variant, but it’s pretty chill and it’s easy to house rule the aggressive competitive cards to pay out from the shared bank.
The Book of Madness is a fantastic light Co-op deck builder with great positive interactions and a fantastic theme (students at Hogwarts trying to close an evil book)
Caverna is a robust building game with chill interactions.
Already mentioned, but worth reiterating:
The Crew
Tokaido
Ticket to Ride
Forbidden Island/Skies/Dessert/Forrest
Pandemic
And he sure to check out Rhado Runs Through for game reviews. He plays mostly with his wife, and so always reviews how the game feels to play together without backstabbing.
Here’s some suggestions, just games I find I get lots of play out of and people are always willing to play.
Dune Imperium is probably my favorite. It’s a deck builder with worker placement. It’s got a lot of different strategies you can take to win, there’s not one set way. Dune Imperium: Uprising is an updated (for the 2nd movie) version of the game that fixes some things from the first one, tho I think I still prefer the original. This one is a bit more serious, but I’m including it because it’s my favorite.
Everdell is a great game and very easy to get into. Mostly worker placement with some engine building. Cute theme and it looks great on the table. Definitely recommend giving it a look. Avoid the expansions when buying, they might add too much to the gameplay. There is an updated version Everdell: Farshore, which I’ve heard is better, tho I haven’t played it.
Clank! And any in that series are also super friendly and easy to get into. It’s a dungeon exploration deck builder. Personally I’d recommend going with Clank! Catacombs, which is the updated version that adds a tile based map so each play through is a little different. I have not played Clank! In Space or any of the others.
7 Wonders is a fun pick and pass type game. You build up your city and try to win via military, economic, or scientific power. Easy to pick up, and has more strategy in it than first glance. The 2-player version 7 Wonders: Duel has to be my favorite 2 player game. Note on Duel, if you get it, the only expansion I’d pick up is Agora, Pantheon just isn’t as impactful.
Black Hole Rainbows, absolutely ridiculous game, everyone scoffs at it at first and then has a stupid good time playing it. It’s stupidly colorful and definitely over produced but that’s part of the charm. If you can find a copy, buy it. Hard to get right now.
Intellectual property is a resource. Corporations are in the business of hoarding resources to extort ration at a price. Microsoft doesn’t care about the studios. They care about owning ip.
Tsuro is a very quick, Zen game. It's tile placement and stone movement.
Obviously if you don't like S.H., you probably won't like The Resistance or Avalon. But from the same publisher, there's Coup (a game of creative lying), and Grifters (an engine-builder made up of resource collection with a crime theme). I like them both and they're very quick.
I don't think Fluxx could lead to long term frustration, because it's just so wild.
Catan is a classic and it's never caused tempers in my group.
Ticket to ride is really fun. You kind of do your own thing building train routes the whole time. Not too much overlap to block other people unless you know the routes super well, and even then you don’t know what people are going for based on the routes they have to complete. All in all, it’s one of my favorite board games.
Because that is part of the cycle of collapse and shock doctrine these corporations rely on to keep from being clowned on by moderately competent smaller game studios who actually are excited by the challenge to convince people to buy their art instead of shoving derivative slop down their customer’s throat as the cinematic monochoice for entertainment product category no. 1254…
If you mow the grass, the longterm benefit of preserving a strict monoculture is well worth the temporary mass destruction (from the perspective of the person driving the mower, it smells quite pleasant actually).
To be clear, the blades of grass are the smaller game studios on Microsoft’s lawn.
I don’t hear about this one often but it is always the first game I bust out for newbies.
Camel Up!
Players place bets on little camels that run around the track. The turns move quickly, people love gambling, and you some strategy will help you win, but it’s random enough that everybody has a chance at coming out ahead.
Someone might get the bet you had your eye on, but there’s no direct “attacks” on other players.
Cottage Garden is very satisfying. You Tetris together garden pieces to fill plots and you can cover a single spot with a sleeping kitty. There’s scoring and competition, but it’s not antagonistic in any way.
I’m also a big fan of cooperative games in general.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne