Better, easy-to-play board games

We've thankfully moved on from Catan and Monopoly

If Monopoly or Settlers of Catan is your idea of what makes for a great board game, then either you are a very big fan of those board games or you haven’t yet been introduced to the world of modern board games.

In the last 20 years or so, board games have evolved massively, and they’ve gone from relatively simple chance-only games to an incredible variety of different kinds of board games for different kinds of people, occasions, and preferences. For different kinds of people, occasions, and preferences. Here I’m going to share with you some of my favorite light-weight boardgames just to introduce you to the idea. But if you really want to get into it, I recommend you check out some board game channels on YouTube or boardgamegeek.com.

Given demand, I’ll create a few posts on heavier board games as well.

Light weight board games

You can think of board games in terms of weight, with weight meaning how complex the games are, how much you have to think about different rules, keep different rules in your mind, and maybe how many different dimensions the board game has.

For example, how many different cards, chips, tokens, characters, boards, etc., does a board game have?

You can find board games of almost any weight. The lightweight board games are not necessarily more or less fun than heavyweight board games, but there is a difference in the kind of dedication or focus you might have in one.

Lightweight board games are typically board games that you can play with a group of people that doesn’t necessarily have much experience or interest in learning a complex board game and tend to be fast to set up, fast to explain, and oftentimes also fast to play.

My current favorite lightweight board games are the following.

Flip 7

Flip7 is a very simple board game in which you flip over cards, try to get as high a score as possible, but you don’t want to risk having the same card because if you do, you get zero points. Your goal in the game is to get as many points as possible.

It’s an incredibly simple game to play. All you need is a single deck of cards, and I actually frequently play it with my five-year-old son, who is surprisingly good at it. This is called a push-your-luck game because really what you’re trying to do is push your luck. So you have to balance between betting whether you’re going to get another card that isn’t the double and therefore you get a higher score and being conservative enough to stop early on. Funnily enough, my five-year-old son often worms because he tends to be much more conservative than I am.

Find links to buy the game on boardgamegeek.com.

Wavelength

Wavelength is an incredible game that is best explained by just playing the game. What you’re trying to do is you’re trying to get somebody to guess where in a given range you want them to be. You do that by saying a single word that falls within a range set by a card.

The range could be “<= disgusting | delicious =>”

So if you want your partner to guess on the left, you’d say “vomit”, or all the way on the left “chocolate covered hazelnuts”. It gets interesting when you’re supposed to get someone to guess elsewhere on the range! What do you say for something that is ~30% disgusting?

And then what if the range isn’t so obvious: you might have a range that is “explicit|implicit” or -one that I did the other night- “tic|toc”.

It’s a genius game that I’m sure you’re going to enjoy.

Find Wavelength on boardgamegeek.

One gazillion more games

There are a lot of great board games. If you want to dip your toes in the water, I recommend checking out games with a low complexity rating on board game geek. Or maybe even something a bit more complex!

I personally prefer medium-heavy board games, but they are a lot of work to setup and make time for. Plus, they tend to be harder to play with kids.

Here is a list of the highest rated family board games. I have many of the top 25 and can agree with the ratings.

And here one with the highest rated “party” games (there is overlap).

If you find yourself in the Netherlands and want to try some, hit me up!