Board Games: List your own and make recommendations?

A long time ago, but not so far away, I read A Child's Garden of Grass (1969). What was new and exciting about the book, from my perspective, came in a line that said (more or less), "If this book does nothing else but introduce you to the ancient game of Go, it was well worth the purchase." Truer words were never spoken, or written, for that matter. Although it took me some months to track down a Go game in Houston, in 1969, I eventually did and turned all my friends on to it. Those friends of mine who loved chess immediately became big fans of the board game. Check it out!

Of course, Risk is terrific.

 

Settlers

Puerto Rico.

End Thread.

 

Dominion and it's various expansion - Best game I've played in years, probably gotten over 300 plays this year already. Games can take from 10 minutes to an hour, plays 2-6, and each game can be drastically different from the previous one.

Pandemic - 2-4 player, fun yet challenging co-op game where you try to cure diseases before too many outbreaks occur

Ticket to Ride - 2-5 player, easy to learn, build train routes across the US (or other countries with the various expansions)

Carcassonne - 2-4 player, tile game where everyone is building a area together, and you try to claim farms, roads and towns as you go

I'd recommend checking out BoardGameGeek.com . They have reviews on almost every board/card game in existence. I tried to only list entry level and family friendly type games. You might be surprised how many great games are out there you have never heard of and will never see in a large chain/retail store.

 

Risk

Monopoly

 

Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Of course you will have to go into your driveway for this, so I suggest playing when the sun goes down.

 

Axis and Allies

 

Mexican train dominoes are pretty fun, as well as bananagrams

 

Ouija board.

Great fun for the whole family.

Spoiler

 

LOL @ that pic.

Ouija boards are evil. Stay away.

 

Risk is the only way to get everyone involved, even strangers...

 

Scattergories and Trivial Pursuit are my two favorites.

 

As a family, we like to play Monopoly, Scene It & Life...

when playing with friends, I like Taboo...with the ladies, naked twister...

 

settlers of cattan (and after you get used to the base game, start using some of the expansions..)

carcassone--slightly easier than settlers to master, maybe better if kids are involved

 

Teen Werewolfs?

 

Sorry!
Candyland
Chutes and Ladders
Fireball Island (Don't think they make it anymore).

My favs as a kid.

 

At work we've played this game nearly every day at lunch for a year. I'm not even a big sci-fi type guy and used to make fun of the dorks that played Magic and D&D. But this is a ton of fun if you're looking for a game sort of like that to play with friends: Treasures and Traps

At home every so often we'll have friends over and play some board games while having some drinks. Usually on those nights we'll play games like Taboo .

 

More votes here for the big "gateway" games.

-Settlers of Catan
-Carcassonne and expansions
-Ticket to Ride

Pandemic is a really fun co-op game.

 

Clue Master Detective - modification of the original clue with more rooms, weapons and characters

Stratego - fun two player war game

Dungeon Dice - 2-4 players compete to tunnel out of prison - great for kids

Guess Who - two player game to guess which character card a player has through process of elimination questions. - great for kids