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.
Go. It’s nobody knows how many thousands of years old, it’s easy as pie and difficult like crazy. The game can’t end in a draw. It’s easy to balance strong and weak players so they can compete with full effort. The equipment is trivial to make with common, cheap household items. Computers got competitive against humans just a couple of years ago (compare to chess where they beat humans in 1997 and ever since).
Clue.
I never got into Clue myself, though I blame Clue DVD for that. The premade cases led to a limited replay ability, sure, but due to these cases involving background narratives made you feel like a detective as you piece together alibis through story snippets.
It’s a shame they aren’t producing it anymore for quite some time now.
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
Single favourite is hard to pick.
Casual: I agree, Ludo is GOAT.
Invested: Catan… Maybe Scrabble
Dumb fun: Mad magazine game
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.
It’s good when you want something real meaty and strategic
That is easy to answer for me.
Mansion of madness
I have played so many rounds with so many different people. The game is complex enough that each round is different. But easy enough to geht people to start with. Easy to play hard to master.
The digital game master via APP is great. I had so many games in which the last player actions decided the game. After some hours of game time. Your actions feel so impactful.
Heroquest.
Solo: Mage Knight
2 player: Star Trek Fleet Captains
4 player: Shadows of Brimstone
Stupid-fun dice chucker for 4 or 5: Project Elite
Backgammon
so many good options on here already so I’ll add one that’s a little more of a dedicated game:
Arkham lcg.
you create a deck that represents the character you will play in a series of approximately eight games where you cooperatively work through Lovecraftian mysteries loaded with interesting stories lore and twists.
has almost a tabletop RPG feel to it if it was converted to a card game, absolutely love it.
Pictionary
Power Grid
Outsmarted. Technically a board game but with an app.
It’s actually not the gimmick I thought it would be! Cast that bad boy to the tv and you’ve got a game show in the family room!
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.
I’ve had the most fun with Burgle Bros
