Mine is Ludo: A solid 2 to 4 Player board game.
Fun Fact: It causes a war in Hindu Mythology.
Second is Chess because dev abandoned their game.
Champions of Midgard - Because Vikings! Its a resource management based game where you go on journeys to fight magical monsters. Its pretty tight and you can play a complete game in one-two hours.
Pandemic - I mostly enjoy this because it is a co-op game. You all fight the disease! That said the game mechanic is pretty fun and can be challenging.
Single favourite is hard to pick.
Casual: I agree, Ludo is GOAT.
Invested: Catan… Maybe Scrabble
Dumb fun: Mad magazine game
Clue.
What’s your motive for liking it?
It’s complex yet very simple. Can be played by a small or large group easily. Teaches logic, reasoning, and deduction over “outscoring” your opponent. Being the dealer doesn’t give you any advantages if you play it right. And because of all the various permutations of the cards, it’s always a new game each time vs a number of set scenarios/strategies.
Sequence is a favorite of mine.
Mancala, if that counts.
Heroquest.
After being hyped up by the commercial, I was severely disappointed in the broadsword.
Browed Sowed
Call to Adventure, Wingspan/Wyrmspan, most of the Tiny Epic series, Coup are all solid contenders.
I like the Red Raven games but I don’t really look forward to playing them because of all the set up and tear down lol, I would love them as digital products with automation.
I absolutely love Wingspan. Should I also get Wyrmspan, or would I be better off getting the last expansion or two I’m missing from Wingspan? We also love the Tiny Epic series, but we couldn’t really get our group into Coup unfortunately
I like Wyrmspan because it shakes up the mechanics, but to be perfectly honest I just love dragons more than birds so the art alone practically sold me on it lol
My partner and I prefer dragons as well. I don’t mean to keep bothering you but I have a couple of questions if you don’t mind
1.) Are they all different dragons with little trivia tidbits like the birds?
2.) Do you know if it plays well at two players? We really appreciated the Asia expansion for catering to that specifically
No bother at all! They are all different dragons with wonderful original art, but the cards don’t have trivia. There is a “dragons facts sheet” thing that’s included just as flavour.
Might not be the best person to answer the latter, as my partner and I played an absolute crap ton of Wingspan just the two of us and thought it played fine enough, even without the Asia expansion.
We enjoyed the original as well, we just super enjoyed that they focused on it. I’m kind of sad no trivia on the cards. I know I’ll end up with the game eventually. Love their stuff. Scythe and Viticulture are also in our library
I’ve got the digital version of scythe but haven’t gotten around to trying it.
Pictionary
Silver
I have WAY more games than I should, and I have so many better games, but Silver is the one that my wife and I have played more than ALL the others put together.
Technically, we play what we call Super Silver, which is using all the cards from every expansion (except a few we hate) and don’t shuffle them back in between rounds. The game ends after four rounds or the deck is gone.
It’s just easy to pick up and go, and random enough that every game is a little different.
Great board game for 3+ people. Best with a full crew. You and your mates explore a mansion. As you explore a new room you place a tile and something can happen.
It’s meant to have a lot of replayability as each time you play there’s a booklet full of potential end games that you can trigger. Such as the mansion is burning down and you need to escape.
Ayy, I was going to mention this one. Crazy fun game.
I love the idea of that game. But in practice, I hate it.
Exploring the house is fun. And then the haunt usually ends up with a lopsided win. I can’t remember a time where the haunt didn’t feel like a forgone conclusion once revealed. Basically, I’ve never felt like I had any way to impact the outcome outside of potentially just throwing it.
Edit: in my mind, it’s less of a game and more of an experience or story generator.
Have you played the Legacy version of the game? I have and I would recommend it.
Ticket to Ride. Building out your rail network is so satisfying.
It is definitely high up there for me.
This is mine too. I don’t really like board games, but Ticket to Ride really clicked with me and I had a blast playing it. Will get it for myself but damn it’s expensive (I guess that’s a problem with board games in general, and I do see the value of the investment).
I wanted to like the game, but one game where the other players adopted the ‘backstabbing’ style ruined it for me.
Ahhh Ticket to Rage. My wife’s family is not allowed to play that anymore.
My absolute favourite is Spirit Island. A co-op game where you work together defending your island and kicking out explorers and settlers. Expanding your presence and getting new powers along the way. Every game with new combinations.
When we got the game we played this more than once every week for over a year. With each game taking 1-3hours with our playstyle. Sometimes longer with four players (but that’s partly because of not actively playing the game then). We play less now only because of moving with the renovation taking too much time.
I love Spirit Island so much.
though usually unless folks are also as into complicated stuff as I am I end up playing horizons of Spirit Island for a simplified experience
My wife and I really like Agricola. It’s a farming-based people-placing game created in Germany for 2-4 players (with the base game), but there is an expansion for 5-6 players. We do play with a decent amount of house rules, though.
I’ve had the most fun with Burgle Bros
I mean talisman. Especially when multiple expansions are in play. junta was just so fun and hilarious. diplomacy in a take forever and sorta want to kill yourself if you even play till an actual duo wins type of way.
