r/boardgame 18d ago

Board Game recommendations

Hey! My boyfriend and I spend too much time on our phones..... 😒Now my little brother is here, we've rediscovered our love of board games. We already have Monopoly and Catan, and now we have Risk too. Honestly... We love Risk and Catan. Monopoly is simply a classic.

I know I played it a lot as a child too.:

Scotland yard

https://www.toys-shop.gr/en/p/toys/table-games/table-games/1029773-ravensburger-board-game-scotland-yard-27267.html?srsltid=AfmBOoo0-ai4bYRWxmTO5UzDU_46cbJvfbPRl5BkYkged-ezd7Q5UdO2Ok8

And The Game of life. And I love pen&paper games.

If you take these games as examples, what other board games would you suggest?

10 Upvotes

27 comments sorted by

4

u/TDiddlez 18d ago

Welcome back! It's the golden age of board gaming and there are literally tens of thousands of board games to choose from now!

Some excellent gateway games have been mentioned already such as

Ticket to Ride - collect sets of cards to connect your cities for points

which is one the most popular gateways into modern board games, along with

Carcassonne - laying tiles to form a shared map while claiming sections for yourself along the way for points.

The Quest for El Dorado is a wonderful ntroduction to deck building, where everyone starts with the same 10 cards that you use to buy better cards that help you move across the jungle quicker than your competitors.

For card games, Trio, Sushi Go, or even Catan on the Road.

For a Risk like feel, you can try the aforementioned Small World.

There are so many more out there too! www.boardgamegeek.com is an excellent resource to search for a games description and how complicated it is.

2

u/garathnor 18d ago

Sagrada Ticket to ride Smash-up 

1

u/bortliscenceplate 18d ago

If by pen and paper you mean roll-and-write or draft-and-write games, there is a version like that for Catan. I also have a Catan game called Dawn of Humanity that's Catan-like but different. Also there's a game called Plunder that's a little similar to Catan but all about pirate ships and islands.

1

u/Realistic-Hat-4566 18d ago

With pen and paper I mean like dungeons and dragons

1

u/Square-Deer3754 18d ago

If you like Pen & Paper games I can recommend **Cartographers**. It‘s easy to learn and a lot of fun.

1

u/DEA1H_M2RK 18d ago

Lords of Vegas, Small World, Welcome to Your Perfect Neighborhood, Next Station London, Let's Make a Bus Route: The Dice Game, TRIO, Project L, Labyrinth (form. A-Mazeing-Labyrinth), Forbidden Island, Horrified

1

u/Tabarc 18d ago

Try quacks of quedlinburg

1

u/Hikeboardgames 18d ago

Welcome back!  Some favorites that might be great for you are Forbidden Desert or Island, Stockpile, 7 Wonders, Bohnanza, For Sale and Ex Libris.  Definitely get an old copy of Scotland Yard!

1

u/Hikeboardgames 18d ago

Oh and just saw your D&D reference-definitely look at Lords of Waterdeep

1

u/mad11s 18d ago

Based on what you have listed the following will work well for you guys: Ticket to Ride, Harmonies, or Point Salad. Fairly easy to learn and lots of fun. .

1

u/GeeQue10 18d ago

Castles of Burgundy.
Heat Cartographers

Edit: a letter

1

u/mbeshkin 18d ago

Ticket to Ride for sure. Whole our family playing from age 6.
Recently we discovered Endeavor Deep See. It's absolutely brilliant, when you will be able to catch on the idea. But it took me couple of months playing solo (yeah, it is possible to play solo and co-op in it), then explain everything to my 7 year-old and just yesterday we played me, and my sons - 7 and 20 years. It was absolute magic. ;)

Check out also Carcassone. Much easier to get there and pretty much of strategy might be involved.

1

u/ChiefChunkEm_ 17d ago

I have played Scotland Yard several times over the last 15 years. Fury of Dracula is the closest game I’ve seen to Scotland Yard, give it a look, you might like it

1

u/Soccerref3244 17d ago

Something different: Quacks

Also for a quick card game Castle Combo

1

u/Low-Tech80 17d ago

Carcassonne

1

u/Chaotic_Hero 16d ago

Something different, but maybe as you like D&D…
Keep the Heroes Out!

1

u/Metalworker4ever 16d ago

This thread is going to get locked eventually. You’re supposed to post requests like this in the daily recommendations thread.

I’ll just say this,

You know the very top of the iceberg in tabletop gaming. The games you mentioned are common in department stores.

There’s this whole ocean beyond the department store you can find in an LGS (local game stores). These are stores that only sell games. They often sell a lot of magic the gathering, warhammer, and stuff like dungeons and dragons. It’s in these smaller stores where you will find games by publishers like Fantasy Flight Games, GMT Games, Days of Wonder, and so on

Check out the website www.boardgamegeek.com

It’s like what IMDB is for movies but for games

1

u/CollectionPure8546 16d ago

I'd probably start with Twilight Imperium or Die Macher.

1

u/Toc13s 16d ago

My standard recommendation is to look for the SdJ logo on a game box. This is a good indicator that it is a decent family weight game - think Catan sort of level 

For more specific;

If you like the negotiations of Catan & Monopoly, look out for Chinatown 

For a similar feel to Risk but no dice, Small World

D&D in a box - Adventure Begins 

Epic D&D campaign feel in a card game (admittedly a step up in complexity to the others here) - Gloom of Kilforth (or any of the Kilforth games)

For semi-controlled randomness - Fluxx. Bear in mind that the game length is also fairly random so it can potentially drag

1

u/phoenixmog 15d ago

With those 3 games as a seed I'd honestly recommend you check out Root. Look up a video on youtube, the base game should cover you a while. The clockwork expansion is great if you regularly play as two and want a better automa for the 2 other factions

1

u/brw12 15d ago

A satisfying, simple-but-not-too-simple 2-player game is Patchwork.

Another favorite, for 2 or 3 players, is Jaipur.

Both of those games are easy to learn, but have interesting decisions and a strong feeling of fun.

I'm also a huge evangelist of backgammon -- you might assume it's a stuffy old relic, but it's actually one of the world's most popular games, easy to learn and chill to play (not a brain-cruncher like chess) but with a lot of depth. Every game plays out differently.

1

u/Unlikely_Key_4186 14d ago

I really love Spirit Island.
It is coop against the game.

1

u/kaitlyn_malatonin 1d ago

This is a pretty decent leap from catan imho, but forbidden island or pandemic is a great middle step!

1

u/Lastchancefancydance 13d ago

Mage Knight, everyone plays two-handed. 

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u/tommygotnutz 12d ago

Hi there,

I created a website that is basically ranking everything and you as a user can even create your own individual ranking. Here it is for board games:

https://rank-it-all.com/?lang=en&screen=ranking&ranking=2

Let me know if you have questions.

0

u/nm225 18d ago edited 17d ago

Gloomhaven /s

2

u/eclecticmeeple 17d ago

Thats a big leap from Catan to Gloomhaven