Since the only open Board Game discussion that I could find was devoted to two person games I am starting a new discussion.
I got the huge Carcassone for Christmas, and I think we will enjoy playing the various expansions. Even though it’s an old game this house never owned a copy so I had played only occasionally.
Best new to us game was Captain Sonar. This is what Battleship should have been. We played once turn based and twice real time which is a hoot. We had six player, could have eight. Fewer would be difficult. Two teams so even numbers are better. Basically you are submarines with a screen dividing the table. The captain announces moves (Heading north), the radar guy records the other team’s captain announcements, the first mate keeps getting weapons ready (torpedoes, mines, sonar etc), while the engineer runs around fixing things that fall apart each turn. The captain has the option of running silently or surfacing and resetting from time to time. Everyone is talking at the same time. Mildly stressful, but amusing.
We also played Betrayal at House on the Hill for the first time. I liked the mechanics of building the house, but was less impressed with the game itself. We only played once and I think the balance was a bit off since we got to the second half of the game (where one person is designated the bad guy and you actually find out what the goal of the game is going to be based on where you are) very late in the process. Also my character got bumped off almost immediately.
Then we played more Dominion, still by far my favorite game. Mostly with the Hinterlands, Renaissance, Nocturne and Dark Ages expansions.
On Christmas we played Monopoly for Millennials. It was so much fun and so realistic. Gone are the many expensive properties and added were your parents basement, thrift shop and friend’s couch etc. You start with only $100. It was a hoot and it ended fast because we ran out of money fast.
We got a Gloomhaven at our house. It is currently unopened. We gave S Wingspan. It’s beautiful with watercolor artwork and currently unopened in his room.
My son and his girlfriend are big fans of Exploding Kittens, so we played it.
It’s not a board game, but it was fun. More complicated than I expected.
We also played Yahtzee, which I’ve never been a big fan of, but my husband loves. I got my son Carcassone, but we won’t see him until January 4th.
We got Wingspan too but were too busy cooking, eating, and socializing to actually settle down to play it. Meant to go over the rules and videos during rare downtime this week, but none of us managed to do our homework. Looking forward to it, though – it’s gorgeous!
Not a board game, so a bit off topic, but we played Quiplash for the first time. So much fun! It is a little like mad libs in that two people get a prompt and fill in the blank, then the rest of the group votes on the best/funniest answer.
(The game involves using your phone (so you get the prompts privately and vote privately) and your TV screen where everyone sees the answers).
We played Azul which is a tile laying board game and we LOVE it. Everyone from age 20-57 played and it is as beautiful as it is fun! Also Deep Sea Adventure board game was played and it was fun! I got both of these games for D and SIL to add to their new home game collection.
We also played Exploding Kittens, with two new expansion packs, Imploding Kittens and Screaming Kittens, which made it even more fun! My son bought us the game Pandemic for Christmas, which we played twice and loved. Other games we played were Holiday Fluxx (a card game) and an escape room card game called Exit–The Polar Station, which was quite difficult, but fun. We were planning to play Carcassone but ran out of time.
Left, Right, Center is our after Thanksgiving dinner game. Everyone from the 3 year old to the 95 year old play together. We play for money, where everyone starts with 3 one dollar bills, The winner takes all! Usually the pot is around $75, so to the younger kids, and even adults, the winner is very excited. One year a guest won, not a family member; he was embarrassed, but took the money!
We also played with money, and I brought a stack of bills as my gift to everyone. My brother won, but we had so much fun that he donated the winnings back to the group so we could play again. My niece’s fiance won the next round so he split the winnings with my brother.
We also always play a game called CAT, which is a card game played with three one-dollar bills. Everyone knows not to show up at a family dinner without a wad of bills! But because LRC was a new game I fronted the money that one time.
We played Ticket To Ride. It was lots of fun. My grandson received the card game
The Game. It was very interesting. Everyone plays on one team. The idea is to get rid of all of the cards by playing on piles of ascending and descending numbers from 1 to 100. Simple concept, but a challenging game.
We also played Ticket to Ride, the River and Rails edition, Christmas morning, although we had to call the game before finishing (very sure the cat would have messed up the board).
After dinner at my sibling’s we played Code Names which was new to most of us. Good for a group.