i've only played nuns on the run with a house rule that each time you pass through a door as a novice you create +1 noise, and each time you pass through as the two searching you get -1 to listen checks.

it makes it so even when you have people who are more skilled at the game its harder to get around being silent.

i like the relaxed feel as well. oddly enough the group thats more into cooperative games also likes agricola a lot.

1/15/2014 10:49:13 AM

you have to be laid back to deal with the stress of almost starving every turn.

[Edited on January 15, 2014 at 1:13 PM. Reason : which is less stressful in caverna i feel]

1/15/2014 1:13:41 PM

thats true, agricola always feels like you're about to starve, with caverna i felt i had enough stored up that i wasn't in that same danger.

also taking an extra turn to process the food to eat it was a challenge in timing.

1/15/2014 2:04:50 PM

I never really liked Agricula. I acknowledge it is a good game with a lot of strategy, but I just don't find it fun. The game always feels like it ends before you have a chance to get started. Its like you are cutting your losses and going into damage control before you are even halfway through the game. I've just never gotten the feeling of accomplishment while playing it.

For a similar theme and strategy, I've always preferred Puerto Rico. It always felt like you were building towards something.

1/15/2014 2:47:15 PM

I LoVE puerto rico.

1/15/2014 2:49:25 PM

its definitely way up on the list of games i enjoy playing, and also that i don't get to play enough.

lately i've been wanting to play caverna more, and in turn that makes me want to remember why i didn't like agricola so much (but if i play agricola i want the farmers of the moor expansion for it)

1/16/2014 10:19:40 AM

Never been into board games but am thinking about buying some. I thought Pandemic looked cool, but is it? Someone said it tends to get dominated by one player? True?

1/18/2014 8:13:23 PM

I havent played pandemic. Settlers of Catan, no expansions, was the first nerdy board game I played. Seems like a good starter game. I also really liked 7 Wonders and Puerto Rico right from the start but I would have been completely lost in all of them without veterans playing with me. In fact I had the worst startegy ever in 7 wonders but won the first time purely by luck. Puerto Rico was new to everyone playing when we got it and we just kept the rule book out and checked it frequently.

1/18/2014 8:46:57 PM

^^ Pandemic is great for a gateway game. It's fun, it can be challenging, and cooperative. So you all win together or lose together. The game is designed so that you are hiding your hand, but most times I play everyone shows their hand which lets one person start telling people what to do. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. If you play with a bunch of new people that don't know how to play the game, then no one should take over, you'll get suggestions, or possibly ask for ideas, but no one should dictate what each player has to take as their action.

I would say give it a go. Sometimes you'll have experienced players that would rather you make a mistake and watch the resulting chaos, other times people want to win so bad they try and take over. It was my first game I bought, and one I would suggest having as I still find it fun to play.

^ I did find out we had ONE rule slightly off with Puerto Rico which tied into refilling the colonists boat. We weren't off by much, and maybe it just didn't apply in our game, but thats the only thing that I'd want to look at to check again.

1/18/2014 9:41:49 PM

A few posts ago I mentioned my feelings on Pandemic. Not a fan. It always felt like a 1 player game. We never played it again after the first night. It might work OK as a game the group collectively plays.

In terms of other gateway games for people new to Euro-style board games, Settlers of Catan is really the best choice IMO. Its fairly simple but has a ton of strategy in placement and what not. There is also a bit of an RNG element to help out. Tons of discussion on the last page regarding its expansions.

If you like card games like Magic the Gathering, you might also consider Dominion. Its our group's favorite game. On the surface its easy to learn; however, as you move along you start noticing really strong combinations. Our group probably loves it because a lot of us enjoy power-gaming and trying to find the most broken strategies. Dominion also has a huge selection of expansions (we ignore Alchemy).

1/18/2014 9:58:29 PM

Grimx, we will definitely look in to it.

1/18/2014 10:29:05 PM

i wouldnt say pandemic is designed for hidden hands since it says right in the rulebook you can share. still a decent game if everyone is not a douche and the same experience.

1/18/2014 11:52:55 PM

I kind of want to play pandemic like hanabi to try it out, where the cards in your hand are turned away from you and you have to rely on other players to take your actions or get information about what you can do.

1/19/2014 11:12:44 AM

Anything fun out there you can play...by yourself?

/foreveralone

1/20/2014 8:27:25 AM

^ Pandemic

Arkham Horror also makes a good single player game. You are working towards a goal, and it really doesn't matter how many players are behind the characters in the game. As an example, I used to play a 4-character game with gf all the time where we each controlled 2 characters. Its a bit more involved than other games, so if you don't like tons of rules, longer setup, and a potentially long game (2-8 hours), you might want to avoid it .

I'd wager any common-goal games (excluding traitor mechanics) can be played single player, though.

1/20/2014 11:06:11 AM

Any cooperative game aside from hanabi could be played single player:
Arkham Horror
Forbidden Island
Forbidden Desert
Pandemic
Elder Signs
Caverna - not cooperative, but single player variant built in
Agricola - not cooperative, but single player variant built in

If you have a computer set up you can try playing some games with others online here:
http://en.boardgamearena.com/#!gamelist

Similarly boardgamegeek will sometimes have variants that players propose to play single player.
Settlers of Catan has one that I found here:
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/460453/solitaire-race-against-the-destroyer

[Edited on January 20, 2014 at 11:22 AM. Reason : ]

1/20/2014 11:22:11 AM

I might start with the settlers thing since ive got it. And no computer downstairs.

1/20/2014 11:33:58 AM

I got the lord of the rings card game for Christmas and its really fun single player

1/20/2014 11:39:17 PM

Played in a chess tournament Saturday. Went 1-3-1.

1/20/2014 11:41:34 PM

I have never read lord of the rings or stayed awake through any of the movies. Is that a prerequisite?

1/21/2014 12:02:09 AM

Nah, I've read the books a couple times but don't remember half the character names.

1/21/2014 12:48:07 AM

Cool!

1/21/2014 7:57:23 AM

As an alternative opinion, before you drop any cash, I didn't enjoy that game at all. It felt basically like solo Magic: The Gathering with less rules, but more steps/stages for upkeep purposes. It just wasn't what I was looking for, particularly since I was playing with a friend and it appears to me that deckbuilding in that game is "half the fun."

That said, it is very popular, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

1/21/2014 9:56:44 AM

I got to play glass road and parade last night.

Glass Road being one of the newer games from Uwe Rosenberg (maker of agricola/caverna)
Had a very weird mechanic for resources, but neat.

The wheel always moves in the direction of the arrow and you will always have 0 of a single resource or a maximum amount of the special resource (glass/brick being special resources on the wheels). Seemed like a simple enough game to learn, with average scores being ~20 points.

Parade is always fun for a shorter game with more players

1/22/2014 9:59:44 AM

got some gift cards for christmas and i was planning on getting a game...i'm debating between puerto rico and castles of burgundy.

i feel like puerto rico is the better fit for my wife and her family and we end up playing with them a lot. at the same time, i feel like castles of burgundy would play a lot better as a two player game. cant quite decide.

1/26/2014 7:57:04 PM

Puerto Rico can play a maximum of more players.
Both play with a minimum of 2 players.

I would say it will come down to how you, or the others you play with, feel about dice rolling games.

[Edited on January 26, 2014 at 10:48 PM. Reason : what games do you currently play with them?]

1/26/2014 10:43:30 PM

lets see...settlers, 7 wonders, ticket to ride, zooleretto, speicherstadt, i just got agricola but have yet to play it, carcassone...all the standard lite-euro stuff. i feel like puerto rico is right in their wheelhouse, but it didnt seem like it would be as good 2 player as castles of burgundy. i've gone back and forth on it. i think i'm leaning puerto rico.

1/26/2014 10:54:41 PM

I would say castles is the better 2 player game. It scales well between 2 and 4 (I have yet to play it with 3).

Puerto Rico is probably easier to explain, but less luck driven than Castles.

Based on what you listed it seems you have a fair bit of the lighter and more luck driven games. It does sound like Puerto Rico would be up their alley though with the other games listed.

1/26/2014 10:59:27 PM

yea i feel like i cant really go wrong...my wife seems more interested in puerto rico, so i guess i'll go with that. we just have all these games that can be played with two players, they just arent as good. its so tempting to get one that really, legitimately works with 2.

1/26/2014 11:52:03 PM

a typical problem with 2 player games seems to be that unless its specifically for 2 players, it plays better with more people.

I'd say look into some of these to fulfill the 2 player void:

Jaipur
Hanabi
Lost Cities
Kingdom Builder
Takenoko (this one is probably the lightest of the games)
2 de mayo (never played it, but a lot of people on reddit seem to think its the top notch 2 player game right now)

1/27/2014 8:34:31 AM

yea, we got rivals for catan and agricola: all creatures big and small to have a couple 2 player specific games. i've seen some of those names you listed a bunch of times as good 2 player games so i really need to look into them. i dont really like the abstract, puzzle-type stuff. which ones do you think are more themed options of those games?

1/27/2014 1:14:15 PM

i'll try to give brief summaries to help let you decipher what might sound good.

abstract/puzzle-ish would be hanabi. trying to logic your way with clues to figure out what is in your hand (which is facing away from you for the other players to see) so you can play a sequence of 1-5 in 5 different colors. on your turn you can 1) give a clue to the other player, 2) discard a card to get a clue token, 3) play a card from your hand to add to the sequence and draw a card to replace it. its challenging, and rough on communication.

jaipur is a card game where you are acting as a merchant. on your turn you can take a card from the middle, trade 2 or more cards from your hand to the middle, take all the camels from the middle, or play ("sell") 2 or more of the same goods for money. as soon as 3 goods no longer earn you money the round ends, whoever has the most money wins the round, best of 3.

lost cities (card game, not the board game) involves 5 different regions that you are exploring. on your turn you can play a card to an exploration, discard a card to its matching region, or pick up the top card from the discard pile. the goal is to have at least 20 points in any region you start "exploring" you do this by playing numbers in sequential order. you can skip over numbers, but you cannot go back to play a lower value card. you're able to invest in an exploration before you start which will double the points you'd earn on that given exploration, you can do that up to 3-4 times. you earn one point for each point you go past 20. (if the sum of the cards in a region is 23 you get 3 points) play 3 rounds, whoever gets the most points wins.

kingdom builder is more strategy based, and plays well with 2-5 players. you draw a region card, you play 3 settlements in that region anywhere on the board. if you draw a region that is adjacent to a settlement you've placed you have to build next to what you have in play. there are 3 cards (of 9-12 cards) that change every game you play that determine how you're scoring points for the game, and the board you're playing on is compromised of 4 boards(of 8-12 boards) that interlock together to form your game board. it typically takes about an hour to explain and play a full game after you learn it.

takenoko is the panda game. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv4n-e-hb_o i'd just say check it out on tabletop

I prefer Kingdom Builder and Hanabi the most. Lost Cities I haven't played enough yet, but think I would enjoy that one a lot also.

[Edited on January 27, 2014 at 1:59 PM. Reason : more info on hanabi]

1/27/2014 1:57:58 PM

my gf likes Lost Cities but it isn't themed at all if that is what you are looking for. I liken it to a more strategic (but still somewhat luck based) Skip Bo.

Kingdom Builder also is about as abstract from its theme as you can get. I shall build my kingdom as a row of houses...on forest tiles...cuz that's what gives me more points!

1/27/2014 3:17:07 PM

pretty much, i expected more along the lines of among the stars as opposed to "i drew another fucking forest. guess i'm finishing the forest area"

1/27/2014 3:24:42 PM

played Yspahan and Last Will with expansion tonight

Yspahan was a quick game, with camels.
Used a dice mechanic and some area control to score points.
Played in about 30 minutes

Last Will, I just like the game, can't wait to get a copy. Spending money money money

1/28/2014 9:54:27 PM

i do enjoy a math trade. traded my copy of Lords of Waterdeep for Quarriors + expansion. Not a bad deal since I paid 25 for it on clearance. LOW just didn't have enough to offer when I already have alien frontiers and dungeon petz. quarriors will fill that light spot better.

1/28/2014 10:25:12 PM

lords of waterdeep really is a light game, i liked it at first, but i don't think it would be anything i'd want to play that often in a group.

its hard to really feel like you're improving in the game

1/28/2014 11:46:24 PM

every time i played i felt like i was doing mostly terrible, whether i came in first or last. there isn't enough blocking (or at least intentional blocking) to make it feel competitive and the way the quests (and intrigue cards) come out make it feel a bit more luck based than its WP nature would suggest. still fun, but it doesn't live up to the hype.

1/29/2014 11:09:22 AM

we played/learned shadows over camelot for the first time last Saturday. We had 5 people (1 traitor both times), and it was a very hard game! I don't think we fully understand the best strategies yet. It was fun playing a cooperative game for once and after the wives stopped calling us geeks while we read all the arthur jokes in the rules, they seemed to enjoy it as much as the guys.

I think it would also be fun if we had enough people playing so that we could take advantage of all the knights powers instead of the random selection of powers we had.

In the first game I was the traitor, but I didn't really have to play all that much differently because the black swords piled up pretty quickly. The second game we had 6 white swords but then got overrun with siege cannons after completing the grail quest. I imagine we will be playing again next time we get together.

4/23/2014 10:45:03 AM

definitely a good game until you min/max it. then you just add the expansion and it is hard again .

Since I last posted in here I went on a buying spree of sorts. Amazon had a lot of games on sale during national tabletop day so I picked up Eclipse (perhaps for trade bait) and Takenoko. I need to stop buying crap cuz about half of my collection has been played 0-1 times.

4/23/2014 12:16:30 PM

takenoko is a simple game, but most of the girls really get into playing.

got to play infinite city last night, not a big fan of it. tile placement with backstabbing elements akin to munchkin. I came in 2nd, but its largely luck driven with elements of constantly feeling like someone is screwing you over.

also played yspahan (camel game) again, didn't do too terrible, really enjoy the game and it plays really quick.

4/23/2014 12:36:00 PM

found a new copy of st petersburg in wilmington over the weekend

also got to play trajan, bananagrams, and coconuts for the first time, i liked them all pretty well, but would only get trajan to add to what i have already.

coconuts wouldn't be a bad party game though

4/28/2014 3:41:27 PM

http://boingboing.net/2014/04/24/plastic-dice-in-bulk.html

I like the idea of being able to teach someone a quick game, play with whatever worthless trinkets are in your pocket, and send that person away with all the "pieces" needed to play the game.

The wife and I are finishing up our last campaign on Risk Legacy, and a lot of fun was had by all; however, she's a lock a for naming the planet, so the last game wasn't as fun as the others. I'm looking for an awesome cooperative game to play with her and others, something where we work together against the board or whatnot.

4/28/2014 3:54:12 PM

what level of complexity and/or difficultly are you looking for? There's plenty of good choices.

Lighter fare, but still popular are going to be things like Pandemic, FlashPoint, or Forbidden Desert.

Heavier/harder might be Ghost Stories, Robinson Crusoe, or Yggdrasil.

I've personally only played Pandemic, Forbidden Island, and Robinson Crusoe. all work fine for what they are though I prefer Robinson for thematic tastes.

4/28/2014 5:06:15 PM

As far as working together, I'm actually looking into Bioshock.

It looks like you have to have two sides to play against each other, but it plays with 1 or 2 players on each side (resistance/government style setup) and it actually looks like it plays relatively quickly. I thought it was on par with Firefly in length or I would have looked into it sooner.

as far as games you can quickly teach and play with stuff around the house, check out this print and play section on boardgamegeek. You should be able to print up anything they have listed, use pieces from around the house or other games and be all set.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamecategory/1120/print-play

4/29/2014 8:27:04 AM

anyone played Hive? curious about playing this

4/29/2014 8:51:11 AM

^^ i thought firefly was monstrously long for what it was. do you disagree?

4/29/2014 9:55:43 AM

A friend of mine brought the Firefly board game to a gathering a couple of months ago. We gamely sat down to figure out how to play it, and the process of setting up the board alone was crushingly stupid and dull. We abandoned it before playing the first round.

4/29/2014 10:07:24 AM

firefly is listed as 240 minutes on boardgamegeek, so i think that would put it on par with 3-7 hours for most groups on their first playthrough. most of the time i find the times listed to be doubled for a group that you have to teach or refresh how to play.

it was aptly described as a perfect simulation for life in space: boring

if you really, really like firefly i would imagine you'd find a reason to like it regardless of what the reviews say though.

they probably need to come up with an expansion to fix the game, or preferably a reprint to streamline everything a bit better.

4/29/2014 10:32:25 AM

I hadn't really given much though to the complexity/difficulty; I'd only thought of the game mechanic of cooperation. So far we've played the following together: Settlers of Catan (vanilla), Cards Against Humanity, Quelf, Munchkin, Quack in the Box, and Risk Legacy. I guess most of those are pretty simple outside of Risk Legacy.

Speaking of print and play, I'd forgotten that I'd funded Drunk Quest and received a pdf of the game. Maybe we'll give that a try?

4/29/2014 10:35:57 AM