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Board Game Gifts That Actually Get Played
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items Every family has a board game still in its shrink wrap from three Christmases ago. This list is the opposite: games that come off the shelf again and again, sorted by who you are buying for rather than by mechanic, because when you are buying a prese...
Sections
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For the loud group of adults
For families with kids
For two people
For the loud group of adults
Six or more people, drinks involved, and nobody wants to hear a rules explanation longer than two minutes. These all teach in under five and get funnier the more people you add.
The one I have given as a gift more than any other. It is the drawing version of Chinese whispers: you sketch a word, the next person guesses your sketch, the next person draws their guess, and by the end vampire dentist has become a lighthouse. Bein...
The Op Games Telestrations 6 Player Game: Social Skills Educational Party Game, Includes Cards & Dry Erase Boards
A card game that turns into a food fight with squishy foam burritos. It sounds stupid because it is stupid, and that is exactly why it works on a group that claims not to like board games. Do not play it in a room with breakables.
Throw Throw Burrito by Exploding Kittens - A Dodgeball Card Game: Quick 15-Minute Party Fun with 2-6 Players
Two teams, a grid of words, and one person per team giving single word clues to link them. It is the best twenty dollars in party gaming and it scales from four people to however many fit around the table. The clue giver does the thinking, so nobody ...
Czech Games Edition Codenames Game: Social Skills, 4+ Players Party Board, Card Holder, 15-Minute Play
You have a dial hidden behind a screen and a spectrum like underrated to overrated, and your team has to guess where you put the needle. The arguments it starts are the entertainment. Expect four minutes of genuine debate over whether pineapple on pi...
Asmodee Wavelength Board Game: Creative Thinking Party Game, 2-12 Players, 30-45 Minutes Play
Thirty seconds a round, no board, no table needed, just shouting and high fives. This is the one to hand a group that is waiting for something else to start, and it costs less than a cinema ticket.
Exploding Kittens Happy Salmon Card Game
For families with kids
Games the kids can win without the adults having to pretend. All of these work from about six years up, and none of them make the grown ups suffer.
Card drafting that looks like a cute cartoon and teaches real strategy without announcing it. The party edition comes in a tin with enough menu variations that it does not go stale, and the cards suit small hands.
Sushi Go Party Game
Give a one or two word clue and get your family to find the exact shade you are thinking of, out of 480 of them. Kids are often better at this than adults, which they enjoy enormously.
Hues & Cues Game: Strategy Board Game for 3-10 Players by The Op Games
The gateway card game. Russian roulette with kittens, five minutes to learn, and the artwork does most of the work in getting a reluctant table to play a round. If the kids already own it, buy the party pack instead so it handles a bigger group.
Exploding Kittens Card Game
The full Ticket to Ride experience in about fifteen minutes on a small map. Good for families who like the original but cannot commit an hour to it, and cheap enough to be a second present rather than the main one.
Days of Wonder Ticket to Ride : Berlin Board Game
Draft colored tiles, lay them on your board, try not to leave gaps you cannot fill. It looks like an ornament, plays in half an hour, and the mini edition travels. One of the few games pretty enough to leave out on a shelf.
Asmodee Azul Mini Board Game: Creative Thinking Strategy, 2-4 Players, Includes Pieces & Board, 30-45 Min Play
For two people
Most games claim to work with two players. These three are built for it, so you are not playing a four player game with a third of the tension missing.
Splendor rebuilt for exactly two players, and better than the original at that count. Same engine building where each card makes the next one cheaper, but on a shared board, so every pick is also a small act of denial.
Space Cowboys Splendor Duel Board Game
The same tile laying as Azul, redesigned so two players are fighting over the same tiles instead of politely taking turns. Half an hour, and whoever loses always wants another go.
Asmodee Azul Duel EN Board Game
Collect gem tokens, buy cards, and each card makes the next one cheaper, so by the end of the game you are buying things for free. The cleanest introduction to engine building I know, and it holds up at two players as well as four.
Splendor Board Game: Space Cowboys Strategy & War Game for 2-4 Players, Creative Thinking, 30-Minute Play