The review team here at the SBTB Pink Palace is ready to help you find the perfect holiday game for gifting, getting, or ganging up on relatives. Ready, set, play!
Claudia: I have two absolutely awesome favorites – even for me, and I’m not much of a game person in general.
Carcassonne is a great one for all ages, and can be played as simply or be as complicated as you’d want. If the gift recipient is a collector at heart, this one satisfies that itch because there are at least 10 extensions you can buy and keep the game fresh.
Ticket to Ride is perhaps for the younger crowd, but adults will enjoy it too. There are several editions highlighting different railway systems in different time periods and places.
Catherine Heloise: I love Pandemic, which is a cooperative game in which you work together to try to save the world from contagious diseases.
There are several expansions – I like In the Lab, because the pipeline from research to cure is a little more realistically. And I refuse to play the Rival Labs variation where competition means that it’s harder to collaborate on cures (which is a win only for the virus).
Aarya: Catherine, you just stole my rec!
Catherine: Sorry! For once my time zone turns out to be an advantage!
Aarya: I love Pandemic! My college roommate introduced it to me when we were freshmen and I’ve given it as a gift to several relatives. Pandemic is confusing initially, but very fun to play once you’ve mastered the rules (and it doesn’t get less fun even if you’ve played several times). Excellent gift for cutthroat families who need games that don’t threaten estrangements.
Tara: I haven’t played it in a long time, but I remember having a LOT of fun playing Munchkin and can’t wait until my kids are old enough so they can play too. It’s so ridiculous and wonderful
Sarah: It says, “Kill the Monsters. Steal the Treasure. Stab Your Buddy” on the box. I’m in!
Claudia: OMG How could I forget:
This is super zany and very fun.
And this one!
There’s also Sushi Go Party, where more “dishes” get added.
Amanda: My boyfriend and I love Fluxx and there are so many variations!
Sarah: I got Adam the Monty Python Fluxx last year for Hanukkah!
Amanda: Gloom is cool, too, because you stack cards and they’re transparent, so a card placed on top of another will block out certain indicators on the card beneath it.
And Unstable Unicorns, which I backed on Kickstarter.
It’s fun. It’s similar-ish to Fluxx, but you have to build a stable of unicorns and they each have different abilities to help/hinder. My boyfriend and I sometimes bring the box to breweries to play.
Aarya: The Le Beau Monde tarot deck ($45) started as a Kickstarter but now you can just buy it from their website. Relevant for readers of historical romance.
I covet it. I keep seeing people post pics on social media, and it always looks gorgeous.
Ellen: In my job I work on a team that designs and evaluates educational board games so I play a LOT of games and I am about to recommend a bunch right now
In the category of expensive and complicated for people who are super into board games: we have Root, an asymmetrical strategy game (every player has different rules), where different factions of woodland creatures fight to control the forest.
Slightly less expensive and slightly less complicated but still complicated is Dinosaur Island, where you DESIGN A DINOSAUR THEME PARK.
If you like more narrative board games and SPOOKY things, Betrayal at House on the Hill is a fun cooperative board game about exploring a haunted house until one of your band of explorers turns evil and has to be defeated by the rest:
Eminent Domain is a fun card game where you try to build a better space empire than the other players:
And finally we have Boss Monster which is a game where you are a boss monster and you are building a dungeon to lure in and defeat adventurers for points–definitely has kind of a Munchkin-y feel to it:
Oh, also, not a board game but for parties and social gatherings where people want to play a game but aren’t necessarily Serious Gamers, there are a couple Jackbox Games that are really fun–you can get the game on your computer, Playstation, etc and then people join the game with their phones and have to complete ridiculous prompts.
My faves are Quiplash and Drawful. Kind of like more interactive Apples to Apples, Cards Against Humanity, that kind of thing.
Aarya: OMG, Ellen, this is awesome. I second the rec for Jackbox; we played it all the time during parties. It works well for large groups of people.
What about you? What games do you love, recommend, give as gifts, or hope to get this year?
If you have ideas for the gift guide, I want to hear from you! Email me your ideas at sarah@smartbitchestrashybooks.com. Happy shopping!
I love these game suggestions! I have a dozen more I want to add but I’m limiting myself to one that I think will be relevant to a lot of people’s interests: Marrying Mr. Darcy – the card game (http://www.marryingmrdarcy.com/). You play as the various women in Pride and Prejudice and you’re trying to level up your marriageable traits (wit, beauty, reputation, and friendliness) so you can make the best match at the end of the game. It’s hilarious and you don’t have to have read any Jane Austen to find it amusing. I brought it to a bachelorette party once and it was a big hit.
One of my favorites is Road Trip. You can get it themed to all sorts of different things – Batman, etc – but I have the Star Trek version and love it. A friend and I always play multiple games when she comes to visit.
There is also a Sailor Moon-themed Monopoly game. It’s like $50, but I still want it.
The one I always recommend and bring to parties is Encore. Color coded board detemines the keyword from the selected card. The group must come up with a song lyric of no less than eight consecutive words that contains the key word. There are also theme cards. Oh, and you MUST SING the lyrics. While alcohol can be a good lubricant for the vocally challenged, it is also fun to play with kids. At least until your friends 8yo busts out with some NWA.
Also, I recommend instituting the No Bible School rule. My former roommate and her cousin would constantly bust out with these Noah in his boat or Moses on the mountain lyrics that NO ONE had ever heard before. When challenged they would bat their eyes and claim “We sang it all the time at Bible School.” Two eff’g Baptists in a room full of Catholics.
I’ve played most of these, including the first 7 or 8. Carcassonne is great for smaller numbers of people, whereas SushiGo (party version) works well with more.
This year’s all-the-rage game is Wingspan, designed by a woman. It’s about birds. Surprisingly engaging, it’s our new favorite in the three months since we got it!
P.S. Long ago we developed an unofficial variation, FluxxFuxx.
Ticket to Ride is my new addiction! Love the different games you can play, but make sure you’re buying the whole game and not an expansion you need to raid other games in the series for pieces.
Also good is Mission Red Planet and Terraforming Mars.
Love Ticket to Ride and Flux!
There is a beautiful game about birds, Wingspan, which has gorgeous bird cards, and is all about attracting birds to different habitats.
https://stonemaiergames.com/games/wingspan/
My kids are teens, and we all love Splendor. You are each competing Renaissance jewel merchants, and the cards are beautifully illustrated. Thanks for all the good suggestions! Buying the dinosaur theme park one for my nephew immediately!
I love most of these games, but Exploding Kittens can be a bit frustrating. It’s entirely possible for one player to be kicked out of the game early, which can be a problem if that player is a child (or just acts like one).
Root is UH-MAZING, but it took me more than one playthrough to fully get it. It’s most fun as a four-person game, but the game guide does have some suggested pairings/trios for fewer than four players.
and are board games I’ve been pretty into this year.
Oops, my HTML code didn’t work so well. I’ve been into Terraforming Mars and Wingspan this year.
Seconding Ticket to Ride, Pandemic, Sushi Go and Fluxx (we too have the Monty Python version!) Other games I recommend:
Sherriff of Nottingham, in which you are a member of Robin Hood’s band trying to sneak luxury goods past the Sherriff without getting taxed or confiscated, while players take turns being the Sherriff and trying to sniff out the smugglers. Makes for some hilarious roleplaying.
Tokaido, in which you are a tourist traveling the Tokaido Road in feudal Japan and collecting souvenirs along the way. The travelers come from several different social classes and each have their own advantages and disadvantages; the game also has a way to limit your choice of character, so you don’t get to play the same character every time.
Nefarious, in which you are all supervillains competing to build the best superweapon or the biggest army of minions to conquer the world! A really fun game for competitive families.
Oh, and one more: Evolution. Build and adapt creatures to be the fittest to survive in their changing world. Adapt to withstand weather conditions, predators, and varying food supplies. This also has a couple of expansion packs to add things like flight or swimming.
My hubs and I belong to several gaming groups. I LOVE to see cross over between my hobbies!
There are some fantastic recommendations here.
I would add Raccoon Tycoon, Clank!In!Space!, Istanbul, and Rajas of the Ganges for medium weight strategy games. Light strategy, we’ve been loving Space Base, Tiny Epic Galaxies, and Quack of Quedlinburg.
Fun party games, maybe Vegas Dice, For Sale, Skull, Cockroach Poker, Happy Salmon, and Just One.
There is a great website Boardgamegeek dot com with forums, games lists, descriptions, recommendations, etc.
My hubs and I belong to several gaming groups. I LOVE to see cross over between my hobbies!
There are some fantastic recommendations here.
I would add Raccoon Tycoon, Clank!In!Space!, Istanbul, and Rajas of the Ganges for medium weight strategy games. Light strategy, we’ve been loving Space Base, Tiny Epic Galaxies, and Quack of Quedlinburg.
Fun party games, maybe Vegas Dice, For Sale, Skull, Cockroach Poker, Happy Salmon, and Just One.
There is a great website Boardgamegeek dot com with forums, game lists, descriptions, recommendations, etc.
Beware the Exploding Cats NSFW version……my husband and child (10 at the time) got it for my birthday a couple yrs ago and decided on the “adult” version because age 35+ or whatever 30ish age the box said is not a thing the husband had ever seen before. It was funny and then not so funny to have to explain some of the cards to our son. We muddled through that night and waited for his interest to die down and then it just disappeared. He also wanted to play with friends and we absolutely did not allow that. It was one thing to explain dildos to our son and horrifying to think about what would happen if other kids saw those cards
I’ve played a bunch of these: they are all great! I would add Settlers of Catan. It’s a classic, and there are tons of expansion packs/variations you can buy if you already have the original. And if you are feeling devious, Dungeonlords is one of my favorites, but beware: it will take time to learn (6 hours when we first played. We have it down to 1.5 now)
I’d add Lost Cities for a 2 person game.
Little known card game is Lunch Money. It’s a basic street fight where you try to beat up your opponents and steal their lunch money.
The folks that do Cyanide and Happiness have a card game called Joking Hazard. You build comic strips. Definitely for adults.
Also Dominion (deck building), 7 Wonders, Splendor, Small World, Viticulture (build your winery!), Elysium, and King of Tokyo (monsters!).
And I do love Carcassonne, Lost Cities, and Pandemic! And Exploding Kittens has expansion packs now.
Cards Against Humanity is fantastic. I’ve played that with the most random bunch of people and nearly peed myself laughing more times than I can count. And don’t forget they donate profits on the themed expansion packs to charities (they list the charity).
I love Lost Cities! I make my husband play that one with me a lot b/c he has much more strategy ability than I do and Lost Cities has enough randomness that I have a chance at least. (Carcassone is the perfect example of a game I really wanted to like, but my husband won every single time. And I mean -Every.Single.Time.)
As someone who likes “lighter games” who loves a more serious board game junkie, We also love – Fluxx, San Juan, and Dominion. Those are all possible two player games. If you want to go old school, there’s always cribbage. it plays fast once you understand the rules.
My 7-year-old son loves Sushi Go, Gobblet. As some family games we play Timeline and Dixit. Can’t recommend that one enough. Simple strategy. No reading. Pretty cards. Kids can play it and parents won’t get too bored playing it (cough Candyland cough) We even get the 10-year-old who is on the more severe end of the autism spectrum to participate (with modified rules).
@Shana, we played CAH at my Outlander vacation this year. Nice cross section of ages made for general hyserics – especially when one of the older ladies would stop halfway through a card and blurt “I can’t say this!” all scandalized. And then we’d make her.
Yay, one of my favorite things!
Highly second Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride for entry level gamers. Carc was my “gateway game,” and I *still* love to play it.
My husband and I play games so we’re really attuned to good 2-person games. Morels is lovely (you’re gathering mushrooms!) and Guillotine uses a similar mechanic but you’re gathering the heads of the bourgeoisie. Gloom is fun but only if the other person you’re playing with has a storytelling love; for my husband it was too ridiculous.
My new favorites are Mr. Jack, another 2-player where one of you is Jack the Ripper and the other plays as Holmes/Watson/their canine companion, and Code Names. Code Names has a 2-person variant, but it’s best with 4. It’s super family friendly. Last Thanksgiving, hubby and I played with our 12-year-old cousins. It was a blast.
Seven Wonders and Catan are also great, but for first-time folks they’re a little complicated. Helps to have someone there who’s played before.
I’m a huge fan of Agricola, which is all about farming, but it can feel hard to win.
Okay I could go on for ages, but my last rec is Villainous. It’s a Disney-villains game. Each player has different goals and you can play offense and defense in reaching your goal. It’s not as fun with two people (you can get into a stalemate that lasts forever) but with more it’s better, plus it’s family friendly.
Whew.
I always enjoy these posts especially those that focus on games. I second Fluxx and Morels.
A big favorite here is Wise and Otherwise (great for four to six players) aged ten and up. We’re also big fans of Bananagrams (up to six players). For fans of thinking games, I’ll suggest Quarto (two players), Love Letter (fun for two), Rat-a-Tat Cat (age six and up, two to six players) and SET (one or more players, age six and up). I recently played WordSpiel which I enjoyed.
THANK YOU for featuring Le Beau Monde tarot in your gift guide! We love how amazing Romancelandia has been in helping us make this happen!
Our family of four prefers cooperative games, but I saw Gloom and knew we had to have it. The storytelling will suit us and my college-aged son studying creative fiction will love the theme. Some great suggestions here. I get so much from this community. Thank you!
I would add Dominion, Settlers of Catan, and Killer Bunnies to this great list.