I married a game geek. In fact, I married into a family of
them. That’s not why I go to GenCon (the biggest tabletop gaming convention in
North America) every other year—to be honest, I go for the stuff… chain mail,
daggers, leather bound journals… to satisfy my role-playing soul—but I do play tabletop
games and love to meet the people who create them.
Being married to a game geek means I get to play a lot of games. Games have taken over one
room of the house. It’s impossible for my intrepid spouse to see a tabletop game
he doesn’t want to play. He funds dozens of games at a time on Kickstarter and it
seems that every week some new game or other appears on our doorstep. It
didn’t surprise me in the least to learn that we are living in a Golden Age of
Tabletop Gaming. Hundreds of great games are available and many of them are
simply outstanding.
My favorites are the cooperative games. Competitive games
bring out the worst in me. I HATE losing and being targeted by my
fellow players can feel personal, which I hate even more. Everyone playing
together to defeat a game suits me better and I love helping a team work toward
a common goal.
I thought it would be fun to share a few favorite games.
Maybe someone is looking for new recommendations or might consider giving a
game as a gift. Here are a few the big Italian family and I love to play when
sitting around the table on Family Sunday.
Pandemic. (also at top) Possibly the best cooperative game ever created. Fun to play but tough to beat.
A lot of teamwork and strategy is needed to play this one! Even when we win, humanity
is generally teetering on the brink of extinction. The board game comes with
cubes for four virulent diseases and cards for cities around the globe. We like
to give the diseases colorful names and have become really well-versed in geography.
My husband and I play the app version on the iPad at least a few times a week.
Highly recommend you also buy the On the Brink expansion pack for even more
characters and new cards to add to the fun.
Tiny
Epic Defenders. My husband funded this on Kickstarter and it’s become a
great favorite with the family. The game is compact, challenging, and has a different
dynamic. Instead of just going around the table one by one, you wait for your
card to come out and only then can you leap into action. Lots of characters to
choose from. Simple and sweet, can be played in twenty minutes. We prefer it to
its sister game, Tiny Epic Kingdoms, and look forward to trying Tiny Epic
Galaxy at GenCon.
Batman
Love Letter. A card game for 2-4 people.
There are many variations on Love Letter, but we like this Batman one the best.
If you don’t have a lot of time, you can easily make this game as long or short
as you like. Easy to play and loads of fun. The cute velvet pouch with a
Bat-symbol makes it easy to transport. Playable in tight spaces, too, such as
on an airplane. Yes, we’ve done that.
Camp
Grizzly. Here’s a game you won’t find on Amazon, so I linked to its
Facebook page where you can learn more and click to a buy site if you’re
interested. We funded this as a Kickstarter game and snagged a first edition.
Next thing you know, it has leapfrogged to the top of the Love-to-Play list. The
game board is a summer camp with cabins and trails, the players assume the
identities of camp counselors in several horror staple roles—including the
Scream Queen—and there’s a killer named Otis in the woods. I don’t even like
horror movies and I find this game fun. The artwork on the cards is
laugh-out-loud hilarious.
Forbidden
Desert. You’ve crashed your airship in the desert and must defeat the
elements, find water, uncover the missing parts of your crashed ship, and
shovel a lot of sand to survive. Made by the same people who created Pandemic,
so you know it’ll be diabolical. Both box and game are simply beautiful and the
gameplay is challenging. Played using shuffled tiles, so you never see the same
board twice. I like being the Water Carrier, because I can’t think of anything
more helpful than giving dying people water so they can live—though they might
prefer an airship mechanic.
Hanabi.
Another portable card game. What’s fun about this one is you can see every
other player’s hand of cards—but not your own. Players must give each other
simple clues about what cards they have so these can be played to the table in
such a way as to create a fireworks display and gain points. The mental
gymnastics involved in the giving of clues makes for great fun. A wonderful game
for 2-4 people.
Oh, and here’s a great resource for anyone who plays board games: Wil Wheaton’s Tabletop.
It’s a web series and loads of fun. I linked to the Wikipedia article because
it lists all the board games the show has featured. All episodes can be found
on You Tube. The shows are a good way to check out other people playing a game
to help decide whether you might like it or not.
And yes, for the record, I think some of my characters would
be great in a game!
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