Amanda here! Reporting for duty to talk about gifts for your favorite puzzlers and tabletop gamers.
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I wanted to compile things for all sorts of entry levels and price points. These have also been tried and tests by my household (i.e. my partner and I, and maybe the cats if they get onto the gaming table).
Let’s start with the heavy hitters first.
This is one of our favorite tabletop games. It’s a worker placement game with cute animals. There are several expansions (Spirecrest is our preferred expansion) for the base game and also a more kid-friendly version, if you’re worried about the complexity of the rules.
Pick this one if you want a challenge and enjoy some cosmic horror. This is definitely not a feel good game and some of the story routes will inevitably end in disaster, but I love the cooperative nature of the game play. It also leads to finding some quirky mechanics. We had one game where a friend received a vehicle card and just spend a good portion of gameplay running over things.
If you have a hard time rallying a big group together for games, Splendor Duel is made for just two people! It’s also a pretty quick game. I can’t remember matches taking more than an hour for us. Your goal is to become the more prestigious gemstone merchant by collecting gems to create jewelry and accessories.
In terms of longevity, I think this is one of my oldest staples in my game collection. The card game is super portable for family trips and the changing nature of winning conditions makes this a ton of fun to play. Game time can vary depending on how lucky you get! I’ve had ones last five minutes or up to an hour.
Do you play Murdle? It’s a daily logic puzzle that operates similarly to Clue. You have to deduce a killer, location, murder weapon, and sometimes motive based on the clues you’re given. This volume contains 100 logic puzzles ranging in difficulty and once you finish this volume, there are several more, including “junior editions” for younger puzzlers.
Bletchley Park Brainteasers ($16.99)
I handsold this one a lot when I still worked at the bookstore, especially around the holidays. This is great for people who like a variety of puzzles, rather than just a giant book of crosswords or sudoku. The book also adds some historical context throughout for the Venn Diagram
Animal Crossing: New Horizons 250-Piece Puzzle ($17.99)
My partner stopped into a Nintendo store while on a work trip and picked this up for me. It comes with a very cute tin and was a decent way to spend a couple hours. If you have someone in your life who is super excited about the upcoming free ACNH update in January, this could be a great way to up the anticipation.
The Mystic Maze 1000-Piece Puzzle from Magic Puzzle Company ($24.99)
The Magic Puzzle Company makes some great puzzles! And wow, they can be tough. Firstly, they have pieces that look like edge pieces, but actually go within the puzzle. The puzzle is designed to create sections of images that fit together. Once you’re done, you open a secret envelope with extra pieces that asks you to rearrange the puzzle and reveals a new part of the image story.
What are you favorite go-to puzzles and games for the holidays? Drop them in the comments!
I have enjoyed the magic puzzle co puzzles, and although I think there are diminishing returns, I know plenty of folks who collect them obsessively. I am not a puzzle or game person, generally, as I am pretty relentlessly crafting oriented.
Hues and Cues is one of the only games that has worked with my extended family, who are deeply divided between the artists who are Pictionary ringers, and the writers/academics who are impossible with Balderdash type games. There are also the actors who insist upon Charades, who do not have an edge in Hues and Cues and are thus less into it, but two out of three ain’t bad.
I think everyone is over Wingspan now, but it worked for a number of years to unite an older, birdwatching generation and younguns who were collection oriented. And because it’s sort of collaborative/independent, there were fewer meltdowns from the insanely competitive folks of whatever age.
Set, bananagrams, and monopoly deal are solid small gifts or stocking stuffers, I have found, for a variety of ages.
We love Fluxx! We have a number of the different iterations, but I think my favorite remains the original. Of the ones we own, I personally do not like Zombie Fluxx but your mileage may vary (I never can remember special things I can do based on which zombies I have).
I really enjoyed the Mystic Maze puzzle, especially all the fun weird puzzle pieces that made it more exciting than a normal puzzle.
One of my go board games for solo play is A Gentle Rain. It’s contemplative instead of competitive and a session only takes about 15 minutes. It can be played cooperatively too. It scratches the board game itch when I’ve got limited time or focus.
Seconding Fluxx as well as Set and Bananagrams which @kkw mentioned. I’ll also add Quiddler which is a fun word game played with cards.
If you are or know a jigsaw puzzle fan and would like a splurgy gift, I can recommend Liberty Puzzles. I was fortunate to find this wonderful wooden puzzle recently in a thrift store ~ https://libertypuzzles.com/products/white-ships-puzzle
Sort of a pre-Christmas gift rather than an actual on-Christmas gift, but, for the past few years, me and my siblings got hardcore into the Exit: The Game Advent Calendars. Exit releases these escape room in a box games, and for a while they’ve been doing a big Christmas one every year with a puzzle every day for the 24 days leading up to Christmas, and a building storyline that reaches the conclusion on Christmas Eve. (I really loved The Silent Storm, personally) Really fun to solve together as a family. We’re adults, but the calendar is supposed to be good for ages 10 and up. I’ve got this year’s calendar ready and waiting. I’m super excited, it’s become one of my favourite new holiday traditions.
I love Fluxx and Splendor Duel. My whole in-law family group loves all things Ticket to Ride, but I am burned out on it. I think I’ve won once in the dozens of times I’ve played (to be polite). That doesn’t help. I love Wingspan and some oldies but goodies that are also engine builders are San Juan and Dominion. They’re less complex than Wingspan and easier to set up. It’s usually just my husband and me playing, so ours generally have to be two player games.
If you’re a word game kind of group, Quiddler and Rewordable are fun if you’re burnt out on Scrabble. I don’t like a lot of trick taking/Rummy games, but Phase 10 is easy for me to get and not super stressful. Coup is good quick bluffing game/stocking stuffer. You need at least 3 for that.
I have to personally give a thumbs down to Everdell.. . I’m sure it depends on your group. Just way too complex to set up and understand for 1 seasoned gamer (husband), 1 mediocre gamer (me), and one 13 year old who is good at games but not always great at listening to new rules. We’ve tried to twice and my husband was the only one who really consistently understood what was going on and how to set it up and he also happened to be the one who liked it the least and grumbled the most.
The Magic Puzzle jigsaws are fantastic, though I vastly prefer “The Happy Isles” over “Mystic Maze.” I do wish they’d mix up the template a bit, though I do buy every one. For the last few years I’ve been buying seasonally themed 1000 piece puzzles at Goodwill, assembling them, and then breaking them down into 25 drawstring bags for my mom and (separately) my SIL to reassemble as advent quiet time entertainment. It’s become a great tradition for December (and July, which is when I do my part).
@Zuzus: What a clever idea!
My preteen nieces have been board game fiends since they were in preschool. Their favorites include Ticket to Ride, Apples to Apples, Dixit, Charcuterie, and Carcassonne. We have three different versions of Ticket to Ride (United States, Europe, Poland) and we have yet to get bored with it. Dixit and Carcassonne don’t require any reading so my six year old niece can play along with the older two. The preteen nieces also love an old school Battleship game and are warming up to the new classic Botany. We also play a Squishmellow Monopoly and a Llama/Unicorn Monopoly, but I’ve implemented some house rules that try to prevent hurt feelings from ruining the game.
The PARKS family of games are all pretty fun. It’s themed on (US) national parks, and it uses mostly simple icons, with some words on the cards, which reduces reading age requirements as long as there’s an adult/teen level reader for the instructions. The main game was updated this year, and there’s a PARKS: Roll and Hike that came out last year for a faster more portable version. I have the previous small version, Trails, which does great at two but can play up to 4, and love it a lot.