Get ready, because for our last gift guide, we’re talking Games! This is an annual thread, and we might be repeating some games we’ve mentioned before, but this would be because they’re awesome.
(NB: some of these links are affiliate coded, which sends a portion of the purchase back to us at no extra cost to you. If you use them, terrific and thank you! And if not, that’s cool, no worries!)
We’ve been playing a lot of couch co-op games in our house, starting with the obvious Mario titles from Nintendo. I’m a big fan of Mario Party because there are several team games where you have to work together, and it can get very fun – especially the dance-off.
Bonus tip if you’ve got games and older systems: What with all the Inside Time during the Quarantimes, we’ve also hooked up our old game systems (we have a Wii U) and played older games on that, too. It’s a lot of fun to try older titles that used to seem so difficult but aren’t that challenging now.
Other co-op games that might make wonderful gifts and are available on many different platforms and gaming systems: Stardew Valley, or Animal Crossing.
Ellen: For video games: Spiritfarer. It’s a combination management game (like Stardew or Animal Crossing) + platformer that takes place in the spirit world, which is an ocean full of islands to explore. super cute/fun/touching/melancholy all at once.
And Hades: roguelike game about escaping the underworld with really strong narrative elements (and an easier mode!) and 3 very fun romance options (mc is a bisexual guy and the options are a guy, a girl, and an asexual gorgon).
Sneezy: My friend has been enjoying Monster Prom, and I have been trolling him with fanfic premises for characters from the game.
Sarah: Card games? Oh, yes, please! Fluxx and it’s many, many flavors make great gifts, and are great fun to play. We are partial to Zombie Fluxx.
And we’ve gotten several rounds of Uno with a lot of laughter, especially the Emoji one ($6).
Claudia: Sushi Go ($8) and Sushi Go Party ($22) are great!
The latest board game we got was Azul ($35), which is gorgeous.
Catherine: Something tells me that Pandemic will be less popular this year…
Later: So I happened to be at the Games Shop last weekend and had a fun chat with the lovely Lauren, who tells me that in fact Pandemic ($35) has been selling like hotcakes during our lockdown. Can’t quite decide what that says about us Melburnians!
Anyway, turns out that Lauren is really into romance games – I spotted several Fog of Love ($47) expansions on the shelf, and I gather this is quite good.
But her favourites were two phone games – The Arcana and Ikemen Sengoku: Romances Across Time.
I haven’t yet tried them myself (and I MUST NOT because I have many many dozens of beaded decorations to make before Christmas), but this review of Ikemen Sengoku makes it sound amazing. It looks extremely pretty, too.
The first thing I saw when I googled The Arcana was a ‘Choose your pronouns’ panel that included ‘They/them, She/Her, He/him’, and yes, in that order, so that’s a pleasing start.
Susan: Arcana is SO GOOD and SO TWISTY.
If you still want couch co-op: Overcooked 1 & 2 are hilarious. You are chefs in a series of increasingly not OSHA-compliant restaurants, working together to keep the kitchen running.
And when I say “not OSHA-compliant,” I mean there are levels where your restaurant is a series of trucks that you need to jump between, or in a volcano, or on a crumbling ice floe, or has a cannon that you have to get in to deliver food…
Also Untitled Goose Game has a co-op mode now, so it can be a lovely day in the village, and you are horrible geese.
I also like Dungeon Mayhem ($11) for board games. It’s a really quick game where you’re playing one of a set of adventurers trying to be the last one standing on a pile of loot.
Unstable Unicorns ($30) and/or its variants is a quick card game where you’re trying to collect seven unicorns while stopping your opponents getting there first. Has many puns!
There’s also a game called Nuts! ($10) Which is basically this but with a lot more jokes about nuts and the grabbing thereof.
And Red Dragon Inn ($36) — You are a band of adventurers kicking back and relaxing in the tavern after another adventure!
Your goal: carouse without getting so drunk you’re thrown out or so injured you have to go to bed. Lots of expansion packs with different characters, so you can just pick a class/character you like and go wild. Caution warnings for alcohol and gambling.
Sarah: We also have Games gift guides from 2019, another in 2018 and all the way back in 2014!
Great game recommendations never get old. What games are you gifting, gathering around, or grabbing for yourself this year?
I think the best family game for us is Dixit. A bit like Apples to Apples, but with pictures instead of words. Not appropriate for the littlest ones, but once they can sit through a game of Candyland (may the gods have mercy on your soul) they can sit through this and the game is pretty and involves some strategy. We started our one kid at about 6 or 7 sitting in and being someone’s assistant.
My favorite thing about it? My older son is autistic and not very verbal and we’ve modified it in a way so he can participate if he wants. It would be very difficult for him to win (due to game play reasons I won’t get into), but he usually and makes a good showing and he doesn’t really seem to care and it’s rare we have a game the whole family can play.
When I could play games with my friends and family Ticket to Ride was a big hit because the mechanics are super easy, so it’s easy to learn. We would play with a really large range of ages.
One Night Ultimate Werewolf (and the add ons) are good for larger groups. You can play with 4 but I’d rec 6. It’s a bluffing game.
I love me some Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin. Metroidvania with heavy farming elements. The farming fuels the fighting in a way I won’t go into here. Also, ya smack demon rabbits/boars/deer into next week and then make sushi out of them, which is the hardest of owns.
Can confirm Spiritfarer is rad and produces all feels. Also can confirm the high quality of Hades, in which one can give Cerberus all the pets.
Historic brag: I have played The Red Dragon Inn IN AN ACTUAL TAVERN.
My adult daughter recommends the game Marrakech “if you like angrily shouting at your friends while they ruin your plans and then getting revenge by stabbing them in the back on your next turn.”
Hands down, my favorite person-to-person game is Fluxx. There are a couple dozen versions like Pirate, Monty Python, Star Trek, Sponge Bob, Princess (or is that Fairy Tales?) but you have a favorite fandom, they’ve probably made a version.
Fluxx is simple, draw 1 card, play 1 card. But then the rules change as you play and how you win changes rapidly. And can be short 5 minutes or 20.
We have discovered that more or less “cooperative” games work well for our family. We enjoy all the Jackbox games; Codeword is also a favorite (out for a while), and Stardew Valley. I always get great ideas from this annual list, thanks so much!
I second Sushi Go and Dixit! Coup is a lot of fun to play with at least 3 people, too.
I want the Red Dragon Inn! I might get it for my husband for Christmas / (for me).
Co-op games have been our jam this year – Spirit Island is an absolute fav with varying levels of difficulty and a choice of spirits to choose from to see off the invaders. Burgle Bros is really fun, although we hardly ever win. Sentinels of the Universe can be fun but not sure if I would recommend as card text can be ambiguous.
Also, tried our first Legacy game – Pandemic Legacy, season 2 – which has been a huge amount of fun and is a weekly play at the moment as we progress through the year. Am now plotting investment in the other Pandemic seasons and researching other Legacy games.
Seconding Sushi Go and Ticket to Ride, perennial favorites. A new favorite is Bards Dispense Profanity which is like Cards Against Humanity only using all Shakespeare quotes. (My sons have learned a ton of entertaining new insults from this.) Hokkaido is another favorite; you are a traveler on the Hokkaido Road and must collect a certain amount of souvenirs while also paying your way along and trying to delay the other players from finishing the tour. An interesting twist to that one is that the game chooses the character for you to play.
Also, a bit late to start this year but I discovered Black Oak Games makes Advent calendars containing gaming dice! There are I think five different calendars, each containing three full sets of themed dice as well as three unique dice. They also have a free online D&D game to go with the dice that runs all 25 days of the Christmas season. My sons went absolutely nuts over these; it performed the Christmas miracle of turning my ostensibly adult children back into ten-year-olds. So if you have tabletop gamers in the family make a note to yourself to look for these next year.
My whole family (ranging from 7 to 49 years old) loves Dungeon Mayhem! SO strongly recommended.
We are enjoying Codenames for a quieter, more thoughtful game and (Can You Roll) Doubles! for a cutthroat version of Scattergories. Oh, also Uno Flip for a game that can turn on a dime.
Can anyone recommend a good source for jigsaw puzzles? I want to treat myself to a new one, but mainly I’ve been seeing kitschy landscapes. I’d prefer some classic art, or good quality photo landscape puzzles.
@Karin, I’ve no firsthand experience, but I’ve heard very good things about Liberty Puzzles’ wooden puzzles.
@karen and @kareni Yes! Liberty Puzzles are amazing. They are wood and cut into shapes that match the theme of the puzzle. And they are surprisingly difficult. You’d think it would be easy to figure out where a piece shaped like a monkey goes, but no. My aunt gave them out last year and they were a huge hit. It might be hard to get the puzzles, though. Right now it says it will take 54 business days for your name to get to the top of the list just so you can order! https://www.libertypuzzles.com/
In the meantime, maybe these landscapes, etc from Ravensburger? ( I tried to filter for landscapes and art but I’m not sure how the link will show up in the comments. Sorry if it is ugly!) https://www.ravensburger.us/products/jigsaw-puzzles/ff_unterthema_vv_Art_vv_Landscapes_vv_Nature_vv_Paintings_vv_Still%20Life_vv_Wilderness/category.html?_$ja=tsid:68785&gclid=CjwKCAiAoOz-BRBdEiwAyuvA6xeaE6vvGM7eidfNJi_7EAZTtk6WOjYbfRNPXaWchgCaxhzJo3TtqxoCw2oQAvD_BwE
During the pandemic/quarantine, I have become totally addicted to Ikemen Sengoku. Also highly recommend (and agree with the linked review – the writing and MC are very strong, and gets even better in the later released routes).
@karin Maybe try Puzzle Warehouse. They have soooo many cool puzzles! I have to force myself to stay away from their website much of the time. I’ve also had good, if sporadic, luck finding puzzles on craigslist. There are some other people in town who get cool puzzles but don’t necessarily want to keep them. Yay for inexpensive puzzle fun!
Thanks, @Kareni, @NanH and @Sue, Puzzle Warehouse has great prices! I ended up getting a Van Gogh painting, plus this gorgeous Diego Rivera Detroit Industry mural. https://www.amazon.com/Diego-Rivera-Detroit-Industry-1000-Piece/dp/0764942174/ref=pd_bxgy_img_2/138-6213245-0704900?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0764942174&pd_rd_r=9a84f73f-51f3-4cd2-8fa4-1dad1c05bc10&pd_rd_w=pozjr&pd_rd_wg=Ny2wo&pf_rd_p=f325d01c-4658-4593-be83-3e12ca663f0e&pf_rd_r=ZTMED2WK45YQMDDT91SC&psc=1&refRID=ZTMED2WK45YQMDDT91SC
We picked up Poetry for Neanderthals over Thanksgiving, and it was lots of fun.
Codenames is the other current go-to game in my house.
Red Dragon Inn was a favorite with my husband and the kids for quite a while.
I might have to pick up Over Cooked.
My bad, I meant Tokaido not Hokkaido. Frazzled holiday brain.