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Trunkage

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I’m trying to get back into board games again as my kids get older. I’m looking for some recommendations for good new board games, probably within the last 5years. I’m particularly looking for recommendations from people that’s are many normal sources.

I like bluffing games like Sheriff of Nottingham and One Night
Card building games from Dominion to Villagers
Strategy games like Cyclades
Coop games like Dead of a Winter
Pattern games like Azul
Short games like love letter and Mint Julep
probably staying away from Gloomhaven or similar really long games right now?

Got any recommendations?
 

Shadyside

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Monopoly, so they can learn the concept of capitalism. You can teach them the pros and cons of it, and they get valuable lessons on the importance of spending, saving, investing and generating multiple streams of income.
 

Trunkage

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Monopoly, so they can learn the concept of capitalism. You can teach them the pros and cons of it, and they get valuable lessons on the importance of spending, saving, investing and generating multiple streams of income.
I thought monopoly was a torture device to make people hate each other
 
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Buyetyen

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King of Tokyo is fantastic. You play as kaiju fighting for control of Tokyo.

Ticket to Ride is a good all-ages game.

Shadows in the Forest is really interesting in that it's meant to be played in the dark.
 

happyninja42

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I’m trying to get back into board games again as my kids get older. I’m looking for some recommendations for good new board games, probably within the last 5years. I’m particularly looking for recommendations from people that’s are many normal sources.

I like bluffing games like Sheriff of Nottingham and One Night
Card building games from Dominion to Villagers
Strategy games like Cyclades
Coop games like Dead of a Winter
Pattern games like Azul
Short games like love letter and Mint Julep
probably staying away from Gloomhaven or similar really long games right now?

Got any recommendations?
'Aye Dark Overlord!' would probably be fun for you and your kids. It's an improvisation based card game, where you basically all play as little goblin/kobold minions of a Dark Overlord, who have just returned from yet another failed mission of his. You are all standing before the Dark Overlord (DO), trying to explain how the failure isn't your fault. The mechanics are very simple. You start the game by drawing a card, and whatever item/person/event is on the card, the first person has to incorporate that into their excuse for why it's not THEIR fault. You try and bullshit your way through a reason as best as you can, and then if the DO (played by another person in the group) is at least not annoyed by your answer, it moves to player 2, who draws a new card, and they have to simultaneously continue with player 1's story thread, and incorporate the new card as well. If the current player stumbles with their words, or mutters, or makes a really lame reason, they get a "Glare" card from the DO. The first person to gain 3 Glare cards, loses, and is killed as the person actually at fault. If you play again, that person is now the new DO, and you repeat.

So for an example, lets say the first card drawn is a princess. So goblin 1 explains how they were going along, and the plan was working great, and then this really pretty princess showed up! And well, you know how much goblin 2 over there is in love with princesses!! So it's his fault! goblin 2, then draws a card, and it's a dagger. "Oh but you see Dark Overlord! When she appeared, I noticed she had a dagger on her hip, but it wasn't any normal dagger! Oh no!! I could tell, from the way the...sun glinted off it, that it was clearly magical!! And I know you, oh glorious and powerful Dark Overlord, had given us a standing order to gather all magical items we came across for your horde!! So I was just following your orders! It's goblin 3 *points accusatory finger at other player* that messed everything up! Not me!!" goblin 3 draws a card, and it's a bridge. ".......um.....uh...well you see........." DO gives them a Glare card, pushing them close to losing, etc. The cycle repeats.

I personally thought this game would make for a GREAT drinking game, where if you get a Glare card, you take a shot, since as everyone gets more intoxicated, the excuses will become more insane, but also hilarious.

Let's see, coop games. I'd text my best friend, who literally has a room stacked with various board games that we play regularly, but he works 3rd shift and is currently asleep. But, there is a plethora of Marvel board games out there, and there is a particular line that allows for some coop in their playstyle. I think it's the "Legacy" or maybe it's "Legendary" subtitle for the game line? I'll try and text him this afternoon when he wakes up for clarification. But they are deckbuilder games, where you pick various heroes from Marvel, and you and the other players try and keep a series of villains from taking over the city on the board. It's technically a competitive game, in that if you win, you are supposed to tally up which of you got th emost points (by beating villain cards which have values), but we never really bothered with that part, and just tried to beat the villain scheme. Some of them can be super difficult.

There is another Marvel based game, that is WAY more cooperative, where you can get cards that directly help allies in various ways. The Legendary game line isn't that cooperative as I can recall, but there are a LOT of different boxes of that game line out there, so it's hard to say. Some are more coop than others.

I actually REALLY prefer the coop games, because I don't really have fun with games designed to dick over my friends in some competitive way. I'll post again with more data on this, as I sadly haven't hung out with those guys in almost a year due to covid. But yeah, we used to play various board games on a weekly basis, as my friend LOVES them, and is constantly buying new ones to try out. And we focused on coop ones for a while given my preference for them.
 

happyninja42

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Ok so the Marvel specific one is Marvel Champions. Highly focused on coop. You pick a hero from a variety of options, and some of them are built to really help allies, others aren't. You have to buy various bonus packs to get them, as not every hero was released with the core game box. But it's really fun.

Since you didn't specify the age of the kids, a random listing he provided:
Firefly: Legendary
Marvel: Legendary. Not technically coop like I mentioned, but it's pretty easy to just not play in a way that hurts the other players.
Harry Potter deckbuilder
Gloomhaven- He recommends picking up the "Jaws of the Lion" box. He says it's much less intimidating of a starting set. I personally really enjoy Gloomhaven, as the way the game expands and unlocks new stuff as you play it, and that your choices have permanent effects on the game world, is really neat, and appeals to my sensibilities.
X-com, pretty hard so fair warning on that one.
Arkham Horror

I've played most of these myself, so I can give more detailed opinions on them if you wish.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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They gotta learn that sooner or later. It is very important to teach kids the value of money and how to make it both ethically and unethically.
Common misconception, but Monopoly isn't about making money. Everybody ends the game worse off than how they started.

What you want is a copy of The Farming Game.
 

Kae

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Lose 1d20 sanity points.
I thought monopoly was a torture device to make people hate each other
Isn't that all capitalism?
sorry guys I couldn't resist, I'll stop now.
 
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Kae

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Lose 1d20 sanity points.
Forgot to actually answer the thread, but anyways, let me think, I don't actually play as many board games as I'd like and I think most of the ones I've played are pretty well known, but IDK, maybe you haven't.

There's this game called Hive, it's just a simple, easy to understand strategy game about bugs which can be a lot of fun, when my friend had the game store this was one of his go-to games for kids that had no idea what they wanted to play and they were usually fairly engaged, it's about capturing the queen bee by surrounding it.

Another one that was pretty fun and easy for people to get into was Flash Point it's a co-op game about Firefighters, it's fairly easy to learn and again it's about firefighters stopping a fire, I think that's cool.

I'll second @happyninja42 with Legacy, it's pretty fun, I had some good times getting together with friends to play that while we ate pizza and they got drunk as I slowly got more and more uncomfortable from being the only sober person in the room, but again it's pretty fun and you can pick pretty much any franchise your kids are into, from Marvel, DC, Aliens, Predator, etcétera.

And I really like Lords of Waterdeep, like maybe because this is what we normally played after D&D, because one of my friends was obsessed with it, but it's a fun game, the setup does take a bit of time and depending on the number of players it can be long-ish, but it's not like an hours long game so it should be fine.
 

SilentPony

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How long does Betrayal take? As long as Arkham Horror?
Betrayal takes 60-90mins, Arkham can last up to 2 hours, but that's rare. Both games are insanely lethal to the players, in a fun way, and once the vampires and other-world shamblers are on the table things come to a head very quickly.
The build up and the tension is getting there.
 

Phoenixmgs

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I’m trying to get back into board games again as my kids get older. I’m looking for some recommendations for good new board games, probably within the last 5years. I’m particularly looking for recommendations from people that’s are many normal sources.

I like bluffing games like Sheriff of Nottingham and One Night
Card building games from Dominion to Villagers
Strategy games like Cyclades
Coop games like Dead of a Winter
Pattern games like Azul
Short games like love letter and Mint Julep
probably staying away from Gloomhaven or similar really long games right now?

Got any recommendations?
Bluffing Games:
-Battlestar Galactica
-Secret Hitler
-Spyfall (super quick and easy)
-Who Goes There? (The Thing themed, runs a bit longer than it should but solid game)
-Shadow Hunters (light, quick and fun)

Card building games (I'm not a fan of them unless there's board game component to them, I hate Dominion for example; I also hate the Legendary games):
-Clank! games
-Tyrants of the Underdark
-Baseball Highlights 2045
-Mystic Vale (you actually make your cards vs making a deck)

Strategy Games:
-Terraforming Mars (I've played it well over 100 times)
-Railways of the World (simple mechanics, hard to master)
-Through the Ages
-Dominant Species (so much to think about)
-Twilight Imperium 4th Edition
-Scythe
-Lords of Waterdeep (nice DnD themed worker placement game, low complexity but very solid)
-Nippon
-Terra Mystica
-A Feast for Odin
-Tzolk'in
-A few "classics" as board games go because of how new most games are: Puerto Rico, Power Grid, Tigris & Euphrates

Co-op Games (most bluffing games are basically co-ops too):
-Sentinels of the Multiverse
-Shadows over Camelot
-Mysterium
-Mansions of Madness
-Betrayal
-Spirit Island

Pattern games:
-Sagrada
-Roll Player

Short games:
-Codenames
-Wavelength
-7 Wonders
-It's a Wonderful World (perfect mix of 7 Wonders card drafting and Century: Spice Road card engine building)
-Splendor
-Hanabi
-Ethnos
-Telestrations
 
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blockhead77

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The list above gives a lot of good suggestions, but I didn't see Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride. Both are pretty fun. In terms of card games I usually play a bunch with a standard deck, and most of the ones that require unique decks you are probably already aware of. I'll suggest Skip-bo 'though, since I don't see many people talk about it.
 

Phoenixmgs

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The list above gives a lot of good suggestions, but I didn't see Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride. Both are pretty fun. In terms of card games I usually play a bunch with a standard deck, and most of the ones that require unique decks you are probably already aware of. I'll suggest Skip-bo 'though, since I don't see many people talk about it.
I forgot Ticket to Ride, nice and simple game. I really don't care for Catan though as luck plays too much of a role IMO both with the dice and cards. And someone can lose early on if it takes them too long to get a certain resource or two while someone else could get them right away just due to lucky dice rolls.
 

blockhead77

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I forgot Ticket to Ride, nice and simple game. I really don't care for Catan though as luck plays too much of a role IMO both with the dice and cards. And someone can lose early on if it takes them too long to get a certain resource or two while someone else could get them right away just due to lucky dice rolls.
Luck is part of commerce 'though