Agricola looks like a neat game. Do different personality type excel at different games? Do hidden characteristics come to the surface? My wife is generally pretty passive, but with games gets quite competitive. She might let a grandkid win at checkers once, but would soundly beat them later with no regret or quarter given.
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Me, my bro and our friends donât really play board games asides from Risk and Kings of Tokyo, we mainly either play cards games (the two ones we play the most are Uno and Cards Against Humanity) and a lot of video games.
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King of Tokyo is such a good game! I bought it for my brothers for Christmas last year.
We play lots of Settlers. My favorite is the Knights and Cities version.
Also, Agricola, Hansa Teutonica, Stone Age, Hidden Desert, El Gaucho, Flashpoint, Ticket to Ride, Puerto Rico
Of the not German Strategy variety:
Qwerkle, Boggle, Dutch Blitz, Five Straight, Scrabble, Code Names, Quiddler, Telestrations, Lost Cities
My husbands loves to learn new games. The kind that take two hours to explain and three hours to play, and five times playing to figure out what you are supposed to do on your turn. Iâve pretty much reached my limit, and I also have no desire to stay up until 2 in the morning playing games with friends like we used to when we were young and fun. But, a good one (and not complicated long one) I played at our last âgame nightâ was Labyrinth. Might have to add that one to our collection.
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Polyandry huh? We keep learning more and more about you, Christy!
I donât know if itâs a function of my getting older, but I have less and less patience for games that require extensive set up. The best games now for me are the ones that you could jump in on after a paragraph of quick instructions.
That said ⌠ditto on Code Names! We donât actually own that board game, but I programmed it so that I could play it in my classroom at school on screen. Then for science class I use a science word list for it ⌠they love it.
Also âWits and Wagersâ - another one that is wonderfully adaptable for educational purposes if one wants practice guessing reasonable values of things (like the mass of a pencil, the cube root of 3, or the number of piano tuners in Chicago.)
Some quick and easy games are âiotaâ (think âSetâ game meets âQuirkleâ) or âSpot itâ - these are wonderful fun and with bunches of varieties. Hardly even need any instruction page (and one small tin of playing cards that would fit in your pocket)!
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Chess and Bridge.
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I blame it on the gremlins who live in the interwebs and insert typos in all my posts. They must be reproducing, because they are interfering far more frequently these days.
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Yep, I agree with both you and Christy there. Maybe Iâll try to become fun again when my kids are old enough to stay up late, but only time will tell. Right now Iâm so accustomed to interruptions that quick games are all I can do.
These arenât family activities so much as solitary, but at the risk of contributing towards even more âscreen timeâ addictions, I have to put in a plug for Simon Tathamâs online âportable puzzle collectionâ. Itâs got a variety of logic type games (including some renamed versions of familiar ones like âMastermindâ or âMinesweeperâ) - and many more of similar and creative varieties. If you find things like Sudoku calmingly therapeutic, then youâll probably enjoy some of these.
Ooh, thank you â itâs been a long time since Iâve played Minesweeper! My husband has also developed a bunch of games at The Problem Site, which I have to be careful not to become addicted to.
It is good to see board games mentioned though, and I probably should be playing more of those than the solitary screen type. Itâs funny how much you can learn about people that you otherwise didnât know before you played a game with them (as others have mentioned, sometimes people become more ore less competitive than you would have otherwise thought).
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Ooooh - how gently you are revenged! Now I have some new addictive possibilities too. ⌠Word Funnel. And the math teacher in me is drooling over some of the other stuff in there so that I might have to subscribe to get access to some of the solutions.
Amen to that. Our family has had its season with âSettlersâ⌠And when playing with extended families there would sometimes be a clash of philosophies. Some canât stand the thieving brigand and so always âplay kindlyâ moving the thief back into spots where nobody is disadvantaged. But then others of us are out for blood.
I tried a revised rule set âMennos of Katanâ where the thief is really a tornado, and then if youâve collected enough âmenno-knightsâ you can have MDS come clean it up for you. Never really caught on for some reason.
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Lol⌠I like that idea. I can see what you mean about different philosophies though â some have âhouse rulesâ too that seem to make it either more or less difficult to be competitive. What we really need is a âNew creation vs. evolutionâ type of game, where the goal is actually to try and overcome our evolutionary past and come together to defeat principalities and powers rather than each other. 
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Oow yes. I love Ticket to Ride. My wife and I have in the past played doubles against other couples - only to be done with very good friends!!! 
We also play Pandemic, usually controlling to characters each.
Uno and Monopoly Deal are firm favourites too. As it 221b Baker Street - sherlock homes board game which is like Cluedo (or Clue for my American brothers and sisters) on steroids.
We also love Guess Who, though we play what we call âextreme rulesâ which means you are not allowed to ask any questions about there physical appearance. Questions might include âdoes this person draw a pension?â âWould they attend a ComiCon in cosplay?â Always hilarious.
Similarly, we play Guess Who with âChristian Rulesâ, again no questions about physical appearance but you assume that every card is a Christian. Questions might include âwould this person attend a Psalm singing only church?â or âwould this person raise their hands in sung worship?â. Weâve played both versions a bunch of people and it is usually hilarious and SCARILY effective at narrowing down guesses.
As to computer games, I play a lot of Stellaris which is a bit like Risk in space. Iâve also racked up an obscene amount of hours on TES IV: Oblivion.
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My wife also reminds me that we like Labyrinth, Blokus, and Otrio. My son Seth just beat me on Boggle tonight.
Iâm a big fan of German- or Euro-style tabletop games. In fact, Iâve twice taught a J-term course at Calvin on these types of games. Students purchase a copy of a game from a specified list instead of any textbooks, and I ensure that Iâve got at least 4-5 copies of every game we play. I divide the course up into modules:
Module 0: Classic American games - Monopoly, Scrabble, etc.
Module 1: Resource-based games - Settlers of Catan, 7 Wonders
Module 2: Tile-laying games - Carcassonne, Alhambra
Module 3: Card games - Dominion, Race for the Galaxy
Module 4: Cooperative games - Pandemic, Forbidden Desert
The very first day, we play a bunch of classic American games, analyzing the basic elements and gameplay. Then we spent 2 days on each subsequent module, with half the class playing each game on the first day and then switching for the second day. Thereâs usually enough time to play several rounds of each game during our 3-hour class sessions, and each night, students reflect on the game that day, with specific questions they must respond to regarding strategy, player interaction, replay-ability, game design, etc. They also read articles, listen to podcasts, and watch videos about the design and development of the games we play. After working through all the modules, students work in groups to design new games (or expansions for existing games) that incorporate all of the elements theyâve considered with the games we played. They kept development journals, do play testing, etc. Some of the games theyâve come up with have been quite fun!
At any rate, some other favorites of mine (beyond those used in my course) include Kingdom Builder and Splendor, though Race for the Galaxy is my personal favorite.
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Very interesting, the computer games I have been playing with buddies and alone have been Rust, Space Engineers, Half-Life 2 and HL2 Episodes 1&2. Been also playing Knights Crusaders 2 recently as well.
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The males in the house, myself, my eldest, and my youngest all play computer games a lot. My sons also play a lot of magic and role playing like D&D. On the computer, I like both Stellaris and Space Engineers as well Avorion (I like the open world space games), but currently I have been playing a lot of No Manâs Sky. My eldest plays a lot of Final Fantasy and my youngest plays a lot of Minecraft â at least those are the ones I remember the names of. All three of us have quite a collection of games on Steam.
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Probably one of my favourite games of all time. They donât make them like that anymore.
OH MY GOODNESS this sounds like the best idea. I need a Guess Who set now. hahahah
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We play a lot of board games in our house tooâŚmany already mentioned here. As a homeschooler, Iâm a sucker for history and science themed games even if they arenât super educational 
I donât think Evolution has been mentionedâŚthatâs one our whole family enjoys. We have the Flight expansion and there is also a newer Climate version of the game (as a stand-alone or expansion). It plays a lot smoother than other science-themed games that can be kind of a stretch (like Cytosis, although itâs not bad and I appreciate the effort)!
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