Playing board games at my family gatherings is hard. With so many cousins to account for, most of my collection can’t handle player counts to support us all. For moments like this, I turn to a few quality games that shine with many people in the same room.
Up until relatively recently, board games have been a primarily competitive medium. Thankfully, thanks to innovations in game design, players can now work together to face off against an opposing force that can only be stopped with your combined talents. This edition features a group of games that will keep you working as a team all night long.
Dungeons & Dragons is one of the most influential games of all-time. It’s also one of the most intimidating. The game features a ton of rules and requires a group of players to have at least one that’s designated as Dungeon Master, which is a very difficult role to fill. To this day, I’ve never played actual D&D before and I’m not sure if I ever will.
With that said, that doesn’t mean I’ve been deprived of the dungeon crawling experience. D&D might be the original, though its core concepts have been streamlined, simplified, or just straight-up copied a countless number of times. This Board Game Night Playlist features dungeon raiding games that are fine-tuned for casual players to get their fix. Now let’s gear up and head into this introductory dungeon crawl playlist!
Whether it be on the silver screen, Saturday morning cartoons, or lunchboxes, superheroes have existed outside of the comic book pages for almost as long as they’ve existed. I, for one, knew of Spider-Man and the X-Men first from their cartoon exploits, while my first real exposure to Batman was from the Michael Keaton movie back in 1989. Superheroes have also had a presence in the board game space for decades, though the vast majority of these efforts were shoddy cash grabs.
Some of the modern superhero games still are poor titles that are excuses to make a quick buck, though both DC and Marvel have made honest efforts to improve their board game portfolios to the point where they both have games that are great by any measure. If you’re in the mood to live the superhero experience in tabletop gaming form, try these ones out!
I need to go to Japan someday. My love of video games and anime were my introduction to the Land of the Rising Sun, though I’ve grown to become fascinated with almost every facet of the country. Didn’t realize it until just now, but Japan also is a thematic hot bed for board games. I only chose three for this list, though there are a ton of great games that use Japan as a backdrop. Let’s hop on a plane and check out this month’s Japan-themed Board Game Night Playlist!
This installment of the Board Game Night Playlist is all about money. This set of games is all about stacking that paper, making it rain and stacking more paper so you can make it rain again. The most obvious choice almost didn’t make the cut, but there are some lesser known games that really make this list pop. Time to get out your wallets and let the money fly!
Ever since the advent of Dungeons & Dragons (and probably even before that if you look hard enough), the Medieval era of history has been mined by board games countless times. Even though I’m generally not a fan of medieval fantasy in any medium, I’ve played and enjoyed enough board games set in this era to fill out this playlist. Heck, I even included one extra because I couldn’t make it fit within the main list. If you’re in the mood for some medieval action, try these ones out!
Up until this very moment, I never really thought about all of the different meanings that “family game night” can entail. There’s a difference between parents playing board games with their young children versus adults playing board games with their even older parents, which is where I’m at now. The definition can vary even further, as there are a seemingly endless number of family configurations out there.
Trying to approach a family game night to fit every family configuration is a lost cause. However, coming up with one is a bit easier if you’re looking for games that are fun for all ages that don’t have any sort of objectionable content within them. Hopefully this isn’t too late for the holiday season. Here’s my Board Game Night Playlist that may work wonders for your next family game night!
This edition of the Board Game Night Playlist is designed around two-player competition. Drawing from my own life for inspiration, my brother and I used to play video games together all the time. Growing up, the games we’ve played together were competitive in nature, from Goldeneye, to Mario Kart to Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Now that we’re adults and don’t live together anymore, this happens less often, but we still make time for it where possible. Once or twice we’ve also put the controllers aside to play some analog games. Next time we get together for a one-on-one board game night, here’s the games we would play. If you’re looking to host or partake in a two-player board game battle, try these out!
Welcome to the Board Game Night Playlist! In what will hopefully grow into an ongoing series, I put together a playlist of games that you could use for your next board game night. Ideally, each playlist is created with the thought that all of the games on the list could be played within an evening of gaming. Also, I’d like for each playlist to contain some sort of thread that ties them together. For instance, I want to make playlists that are tuned for specific player counts, themes, gameplay mechanics or other logical through lines to make the most out of your next session.
This first playlist was inspired by a board game night we had with Mat and his now-fiancée Liza. Neither of them had played board games in years, with most of their experience coming from playing mainstream hits like Monopoly or Scrabble. What set of games could we pull together that were equal parts fun and accessible? Our picks out to be excellent choices, as we had a great night and inspired Mat and Liza to seek out more great board game experiences for themselves. This first playlist is the exact lineup of games we played that fateful night. If you’re hosting a board game night with newcomers, or are new to the medium yourself, try out this introductory playlist!
In Third Person 