I started collecting board games in 2016 and now 7 years later have amassed a collection of 120+ games. I'm starting this blog to help people find the joy of modern board games. Nothing makes me more sad than finding out someone had a bad experience playing Monopoly years ago and thinks that board games aren't for them. There are thousands of board games, and I guarantee there is a board game for everyone.
I have a knack for helping people find games they would love, so I hope this blog will help you out. To give my readers a sense of my taste in games, here's my favorite board games of all time:
The game that got me into modern board games. Ghost Stories is a cooperative board game where you play as ninjas fighting off spirits in a tower defense style game. It’s basically ghost Whack-A-Mole. As you kill one ghost, another pops up, and another, and another... until the whole board is overrun and you lose. This game is BRUTAL, and that’s why I love it! It is widely considered to be one of the hardest board games ever made.
The game has a ton of luck involved. The board you play on is randomly generated, which can put you on the back foot early, and most of the game is dice rolls. Those sound like reasons to dislike the game, but I really don’t mind. Even though you can lose to bad luck, a super skilled player will be able to win consistently. Beating this game on Hell mode with my brother-in-law is still one of my proudest gaming achievements.
Purchase Ghost Stories Here
T.I.M.E Stories is a story driven / escape room style game. Its central mechanic borrows from The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. You have a time limit / a certain number of turns to beat a scenario, and once the time runs out you have to start over. When you start over again you have your new gained knowledge to help you. Previous pitfalls or time wasters you can ignore, super powerful items you overlooked you can go back for, and with each play through you'll be progressing further and solving more of the mystery.
I love that the game uses a deck of cards to show you a panoramic picture of the locations you are in. You place the cards side by side on the board to create a beautiful picture and then decide what part you want to check out similar to a point and click adventure game. This is my wife’s favorite game, and we use it as a fun activity with other couple friends of ours. We like to roleplay as our characters similar to Dungeons & Dragons. Instead of stressing about beating it as fast as possible, we try to limit meta gaming and instead have fun casually playing through each scenario and seeing what twists and turns lie ahead of us.
The main game comes with one scenario and there are 8 other stories you can buy with themes like: investigating a 1920's insane asylum, pirates sailing the seas, exploring ancient Egypt, and more! I’ve enjoyed every one I've played, and can't recommend this one of a kind game enough.
Purchase Time Stories Here
Crokinole is a disk-flicking game which is hugely popular in Canada and parts of the Midwestern United States. If you don’t live in either of those places... you’ve probably never heard of it. I know I hadn't! One of my goals in life is to have experiences at my house that you won’t find at anyone else’s house and Crokinole fit the bill. It’s the ideal game to play while you eat snacks and talk with your friends.
The rules are simple: flick your disc and aim for the center hole. If it lands in the center you get 20 points. If your opponent has pieces on the board you have to hit one of their pieces or it gets guttered. So your goal becomes to hit their pieces off the board while simultaneously landing yours as close to the center as possible . At the end of the round you count up points for all the remaining pieces. Outer circle is 5 points, middle circle 10, center circle 15, and 20 for any that made it in the center. Subtract the lowest from the highest and the winning team scores that many points. First to 100 wins.
A quality Crokinole board is gonna run you over $200, which is pricey, but for me I knew it would last a lifetime so I have no regrets investing in one. It really is a centerpiece in my collection and doubles as a beautiful decorative piece.
Purchase Crokinole Here
Nemesis, or as I like to call it: Alien The Movie The Board Game, is a coop game with potential for a hidden traitor. If you’ve seen any of the Alien films, then you have an idea of how this game plays. It’s a near perfect adaptation of those movies and while it doesn’t have the official license, it's very obvious they were heavily inspired.
You and up to 4 of your friends wake up from hypersleep to find one of your crewmates dead. You have to explore your ship and make sure the engines are working so you can make it back to Earth safely. Or initiate the self destruct sequence and try to exit in one of the escape pods. Each player has their own win conditions and near the beginning of the game decides if they want to play cooperatively or selfishly. But every person makes this decision privately. So even though you might’ve chosen to play cooperatively, can you trust your friends did the same?
The game has lots of minis, really fun card play, alien blasting action, and is very thematic. The best part of this game is that it feels like you and your friends are making your own sci-fi movie! And every time you play it, you don’t know how it’s gonna end. It's truly a cinematic board game experience.
Purchase Nemesis Here
Just missing the top-5 is one of the most unique games out there. Mysterium is a cooperative Clue-style game, where you're trying to solve a murder. You have to find the killer, the location, and the murder weapon.
The game is asymmetrical with one player playing as the ghost, while the rest are mediums trying to communicate with them. The ghost however, can't communicate with words, and can only communicate through vague visions. These visions are in the form of artistic cards that are beautiful, imaginative, and downright whimsical. In one, you’ll see a fat rat playing chess. Another has floating candles above a bear trap. What is the ghost trying to communicate? Does the rat in the picture remind them of Disney Pixar's Ratatouille, meaning they were killed in the kitchen? Or were they trying to communicate they were killed in the antique room and chess is an antique game? Mysterium oozes theme and when you set it all up it has amazing table presence. Make sure to turn on some spooky music while you play to further add to the immersion.
This game is a huge hit with all of our friends and I always have a blast playing it! It’s my go-to game when I'm introducing new friends to the hobby of modern board games. This game is so unique that it blows people's minds that this is what a board game can be.
Purchase Mysterium Here
Reinzer Knizia is by many considered to be the G.O.A.T. of board game designers. Medici is, in my opinion, his magnum opus. It has his staple of game design: easy to learn, but hard to master. On the surface this may seem like a simple auction game, but it's deceptively complex. There are 2 core mechanics:
You're bidding with your own victory points.
Each player only gets to bid once per auction.
These 2 mechanics are what make Medici such a well designed game. The final player each round gets a massive advantage (Similar to how the last bidder in The Price Is Right can bid $1) because they can always bid 1 more than the highest bid and win the auction. If you are one of the first to bid in a round, do you risk bidding too high and overpaying? Or bidding too low and allowing another player to come away with a killing? This is the whole crux of the game. The player who is able to buy the most valuable goods at the cheapest prices will be crowned the victor.
On top of the clever and incredible gameplay, Medici also has the best table talk of any game I've played. Keep in mind, this might be group dependent. But with my friends people are constantly begging each other not to bid on something they desperately need, or badgering someone to riskily drive the price up, or relentlessly mocking the winning bid for a perceived overpay. It's a riot! I highly recommend playing it at the full 6 players as it's a rare player count for an auction game and it feels perfectly balanced.
Medici is the newest addition to my list, as I only played it for the first time in 2022, but everyone should be clamoring for a reprint because it's a masterpiece.
Purchase Medici Here
Deck-building is one of my favorite board game genres and Baseball Highlights: 2045 is for sure my favorite! It reminds me more of games that can be played with a deck of cards like Cribbage than it does most modern board games. It has the perfect amount of luck and skill.
The game takes place in the future where robots have taken over baseball. Most of the top players are Robots and Cyborgs, but a few Legends (aka humans) still can play ball. The names are hilarious with mixed first and last names from famous baseball players, such as my favorite, Barry Sosa, who is a beast at home runs. The game truly does capture the feeling of baseball. Just looking at your board with the little pawns running around the bases, you can't help but wanna start singin', "Take me out to the ball game!" and pull out some peanuts and Cracker Jack.
You play a series of games against another player and after each game draft better players from a free agency pool. A game takes about 10 minutes so it's quick, but the real fun comes in playing a tournament. Gather at least 4 of your friends together and have everyone play each other in a round robin. Then seed each team and do a best-of-three playoffs. Holding big tournaments is the equivalent of a Board Game Super Bowl for my friends and I.
If baseball is America's past time, than Baseball Highlights should be it's game of choice.
Purchase Baseball Highlights Here
This game is the epitome of everything I love in board gaming:
Co-op ✔
Asymmetric ✔
Infinite Replayability ✔
Challenging ✔
Puzzle-y ✔
Pandemic may have set the bar for what co-op board games should be, but Spirit Island shattered that ceiling and made a game that I can't see being dethroned in that genre anytime soon. And maybe even ever? It is what I'm coining the first Complex Co-op and I'm excited to see other designers take a crack at this genre in the future.
With over 20 spirits to play as, each playing completely differently from one another, and more expansions on the horizon, I can't ever see myself getting sick of this game. It reminds me of video game MOBA's like League of Legends and DOTA 2. It's complicated to learn, there's a ton of different characters to play as that all play completely differently, and there's a super high skill ceiling. But once you get over that initial learning curve, it's so rewarding. This really becomes a lifestyle game where it takes over your game time. I struggle to play other 2+ hour games cause I think I'd rather just play Spirit Island instead. This is the most complicated game on this list, so it isn't for everybody. But for those that have the patience and determination to learn this game, Spirit Island might just be a perfect game.
Purchase Spirit Island Here
When Codenames came out I said: this is the best word game ever!
Then Decrypto came out and I said: Never mind, this is the best word game ever!
Then Just One came out and I said: For real this time, this is the best word game ever!
And now So Clover! is here, and I can say for the final time: This is the best word game ever!
So Clover feels like the final evolution of Codenames. It is the word game genre distilled to its purest form. Can you connect 2 completely unrelated words, with just one word? I am positive this is not just the honeymoon phase or new game syndrome making me say this. I've owned the game for over a year now and I'm still not sick of it. I play this game 10x more than any other in my collection. We play it so much I've had to replace the markers in the game... twice! Just trust me on this one, if you like word games, you have to buy So Clover! It's like a mini puzzle you make for your friends. With 4 words being on each card, you have to turn the cards so 2 different words match 2 different clues. It's purely cooperative and its fun even for adults and grandparents who might not be as into board games. It's the perfect party game and in my opinion easily one of the greatest games ever made.
Purchase So Clover Here
Honorable Mentions:
Purchase Root Here
Purchase Dominion Here
Purchase Secret Hitler Here
Purchase Terraforming Mars Here
Ever since the first time I played Mafia (or more popularly known as Werewolf) it has been my favorite game of all time. A game purely about real life social deduction. Can you tell which of your friends are lying just by their mannerisms, the words they're saying, and looking them straight in the eyes? A few times a year I throw HUGE Mafia parties with 20+ of my friends, and it's honestly one of the highlights of my life.
Blood on the Clocktower, which shipped to peoples homes last year, just might have what it takes to fill its place. It fixes the 2 biggest complaints people have about Mafia.
1. Everybody gets a role! - Nobody is a boring villager. Everyone gets a token with a unique role with special abilities that are extremely powerful.
2. Nobody gets eliminated! - Everybody plays the entire time. When you "die", you lose your ability, but you still can talk to everyone and you have 1 more vote for the rest of the game so you still have influence.
All my friends say that Blood on the Clocktower has replaced Mafia for them. As for myself, I'm more of a purest and enjoy the pure social deduction of Mafia more than the mechanical puzzle of BOCT. But even I have to admit that the upsides of allowing everyone to play the whole game and how much more fun everyone has with all the different characters trump Mafia for my parties.
What I love the most about social deduction games is the social aspect. I have made so many friends and unforgettable memories playing these games over the years. I also love just how competitive they can be. Most people think of them as party games, but it's not that way for me and my friends. They are some of the most competitive games I have ever played. Most people after playing with our group leave jaw-dropped at how intense and fun a Mafia game can be. I'm so passionate, I try to play every game like it's life and death. Mafia will always be my favorite game of all time, but if Mafia is 1A, then Blood on the Clocktower can be 1B.
Purchase Blood on the Clocktower Here
All games in this article have referral links. If you buy a game after clicking on one of my referral links, I get a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my work. My goal is to help you find games that bring fun and joy to your lives. Please comment down below if you had fun with a game I recommended.
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