MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
I think this is in Cougars field of expertise. I'm after a boardgame for rainy days on holiday.
For 2 to 4 players, aged 5* to ancient.
Something that plays for a couple of days would be interesting, especially if it can be packed away and progress recorded. Ideally not too many tokens and widgets.
I'm thinking there must be a decent independent game out there. Fantasy based would be fine as the boys are very into their dragons and wizards at the moment.
So what can you point me towards?
* he's smart enough to keep up with something fairly complex with help
[img] 
[/img]
Something that plays for a couple of days would be interesting,
You're probably looking more at a campaign based game* as most grand-scale games (like say Twilight Imperium) would not be practical to put down and set up as they involve huge amounts of stuff. These would also be near impossible with a five year old though - maybe something like imperial assault with assymetrical roles could work. You could look at RPGs but they're not my thing. Arcadia Quest is very trendy and the figures might appeal to a 5 YO.
For a mixed group like that I find Carcasonne and Ticket to Ride hard to beat and King of Tokyo a great filler. I like String Railway if there will be a decent sized table available and it's easy to explain. Dead of Winter is the current hotness and gives good variability if play.
Personally I'd get Ticket to Ride and a couple of cheap filler games rather than one grand failure. Maybe Bohnanza, maybe cash n guns - though that's better with more players, and String Railway.
*Descent 2e, Imperial Assault, maybe a war game Like Memoir 44 Overlord.
Firstly check out Boardgamegeek.com - like this place but for gamers!
Secondly my 6 year old has really enjoyed Carcassone - we started by not playing farms as he didn't quite understand the rules for them, but has now graduated to playing the whole game, plus several of the extensions. Each game is pretty quick, but we have played several back to back.
No Wi Fi?
Firstly check out Boardgamegeek.com - like this place but for gamers!
I'd say that's pretty terrible advice for a game for casual gamers to be honest. Or indeed anyone who doesn't want to come away hating games...
Space Cadets could work if the idea of working as a team of utterly inept astronauts whilst the universe shits all over you sounds like fun. If it doesn't then get it anyway, it's great.
Now then.
It sounds to me like you've described D&D perfectly (the board game, not the RPG). We've got one - I'd have to check which - and it sounds like it'll tick all the boxes. Fantasy setting, not too many rules and has a campaign staged in various missions and a story holding it all together. Kill the goblins, find the key, steal the amulet, that sort of affair. Comes with four player characters and you'll need a GM of sorts playing the bad guys; I play 2-player with me as the GM and my OH playing all four PCs as a squad.
Ticket To Ride is brilliant imo, great balance of simple and complex, scales really well. Doesn't take [i]that[/i] long to play though, a few hours. And settlers of catan, old hat now but still really good, another one with super simple mechanics but potential for a lot of thought. Shorter but very repeatable.
Don't like carcassone but I know it's well loved.
Sounds like you need original Heroquest tbh! Catacombs, maybe? Haven't played it...
For a mixed group like that I find Carcasonne and Ticket to Ride hard to beat
Yup. You'll not go wrong with either of those.
Small World is good too, but it's a little heavier than those two. TtR and Carcassonne are both brilliant because they can be taught in seconds, Small World has a simple mechanic but will have you looking at the rule book a lot as its complexity comes from the different abilities that the different races have; I mention it because it's dragons and wizards a-plenty.
Risk? They have a new version set in GoT...
And settlers of catan, old hat now but still really good, another one with super simple mechanics but potential for a lot of thought. Shorter but very repeatable.
Catan used to be [i]the[/i] gateway game. It's far from perfect, but is fairly easy to learn and introduces players to gaming concepts that they might not be used to. In particular, players have to interact with each other, trading goods to be able to build their empires. Note you may need to practice asking "has anyone got wood for sheep" with a straight face.
Suitable for ages down to 5, running for two days is an unlikely combination, let alone being that long and not having loads of fiddly pieces. You're probably best off picking something of an average duration then building some kind of campaign or tournament with it. Here are a few that might work:
King of Tokyo: pretty good fun and one of the games I've seen work best for adults and kids together.
Dixit: very accessible, though the ambiguous language it can require might mean younger players struggle.
Once Upon a Time: Group based storytelling game.
Saboteur: Excellent, sometimes shouty, simple map based card game. Can be hard to find despite having been printed by around a dozen publishers.
Of course, if you want something that runs for a long time, Risk Legacy is worth a look. Again, possibly a bit much for five year olds though.
you lot are why I keep coming here.
Perfect.
Yes, I know I kind of described D&D, but that's kind of where my boardgame experience ended some 30yrs ago and Ive got nothing to else to work on.
I recognise some of those names like Carcassonne and Catan from a previous boardgame thread. Not heard of ticket to ride, but plenty of recs so will add it to list. I used to love Risk...
We've got top trumps for 5yr old for filler games. Chess for 8yr old. Got wifi, but limited speed in la France profonde.
cheers all. Hitting eBay later so should get them in time for le grand depart in a fortnight.
Chess? The better game is the other side of the board...
Out lot love Caracasonne and Dominion - and play them endlessly.
Try this for a good laugh......
Second catan and carcassone.
cheers guys. Bit of an eBay splurge
Catan, Carcassone, King of Tokyo and Risk on their way.
Ticket to ride too pricey at >£30.
Small world is one of my absolute favourites but it is definitely a step up from TTR/carcasonne.
Good choices Stoner, have fun! Quick KoT tip, buy Wings!
Shit, just realised I forgot the best game ever - Quantum. I can never get bored of Quantum.
Dobble. Amazingly simple. Very addictive
Nobody mentioned Khet yet?
It's got LASERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[img] 
[/img]
Does not meet your brief but Pass the Pigs is a great game to take on holiday. Simple, fun and a great laugh. Packs away in a tiny box as well.
Hoppit. 🙂
Interested to see how King of Tokyo pans out, I've not seen that.
Pass the Pigs, christ, I used to play that at school.
Dungeon is another good one
Ticket to ride is excellent, good game for everyone tbh, great fun for adults as well
Or a card game... My 6y has just picked up 500. Started with Hearts then 500 - introducing the bowers and misere later.
Lots of strategy at can be picked up onroute.
Lost Valley of the Dinosaurs.
Seriously. Get a copy. It has been amusing me (and another 1-3 players of all ages) intermittently for the last 25 years, because it is literally the best board game ever devised by man.
[img] 
[/img]
Seriously. No other game has a swamp monster, a pterodactyl...
[img] 
[/img]
...AND an active volcano as well as dinosaurs
[img] 
[/img]
😀
first game of Carcassonne last night with Jr#1 and we both loved it.
Quick Qu though - is it OK to close an un-meepled city with a tile and at that point meeple it, claim the points and reclaim the meeple? commonly seems to lead to a number of "eye-shaped" mini cities on two tiles.
Yep, it's probably the most common way cities are completed.
good, thought so. Tonight's game we introduce abbots and farmers.
And while theyre at school I might crack open Catan and have a go at learning the rules.
Quick Qu though - is it OK to close an un-meepled city with a tile and at that point meeple it, claim the points and reclaim the meeple? commonly seems to lead to a number of "eye-shaped" mini cities on two tiles.
One point to note here is that meeple placement happens [i]before[/i] scoring. So if you've run out of meeples, what you can't do is place a tile which, say, completes an empty city and also a claimed road, recover your meeple and score the road, then use that recovered meeple to then claim the city. If you see what I mean. You have to have the meeple available when you built the tile.
Oh, and, there are two different scoring mechanisms for farms, an 'old' and a 'new'. My copy came with the old rules, which are rubbish. This is the 'correct' version:
For each farm, count the number of farmers in that farm. The player with the most farmers in the farm scores for that farm. If multiple players tie for the majority of followers then they all receive the full points. The size of the farm is not relevant. Scoring is based solely on the number of completed cities which the farm touches.The farm scores 3 points for each completed city adjacent to the farm. A city is adjacent to a farm when any part of the city walls is used to define the boundary of the farm.
Ie, you score per-farm, which apart from anything else is easier to keep track of and makes much more sense. The old version scored farms per-city, which is crazy.
The new rules also give you a full 4 points for a 2-tile city; the old only 2. We house-ruled this out and score 2 points for a 2-tile city as we found it to unbalance the game.
Tonight's game we introduce abbots and farmers.
Point of note here, Carcassonne has a shedload of expansions. Some are great, some are absolutely dire. Be careful impulse-buying for it. (I mention this as the Abbot is an expansion feature, presumably you've picked that up too...?)
ours is a new spanky box that came with abbots and river expansion included. I like the idea of the 1pt per tile for a 2 tile city.
monastries seem like a bit of a gift. An easy 6-9pts depending on when in the game played.
Be careful impulse-buying for it.
My catapult makes excellent toaster tongs.
Ah, wait, belay that. Seems the Abbot is included in the latest print run, I didn't realise that.
I've just read the supplementary rules for the new edition.
https://boardgamegeek.com/article/17640237#17640237
They now introduce farmers as an advanced feature. I can see why - they're can be a bit tricky to get your head round, but they're absolutely core to the game. You want to be playing with farmers as soon as you can.
The Abbot just looks like complexity for the sake of it, to me. If I were you, I'd hold off playing with the Abbot until such a point as you're craving change in the base game (ie, where you'd want to run out and buy an add-on for it).
Just read somewhere that this edition has different artwork; that might cause a problem with expansion compatibility. I'll dig about at lunch time.
ours is a new spanky box that came with abbots and river expansion included. I like the idea of the 1pt per tile for a 2 tile city.
Yeah, I've just worked that out. The River has been included for donkey's years, I've never seen it without.
monastries seem like a bit of a gift. An easy 6-9pts depending on when in the game played.
The counterpoint to that is that they can be tricky to complete, and if you don't complete them you never get your meeple back. Overcommitting to cloisters can lead to you running out of meeple.
The counterpoint to that is that they can be tricky to complete
...and as a consequence they can be make it very easy for someone to play to trap your meeple.
abbot seems a relatively minor addition. will wait on that one. Farmers I think Jr can handle.
...and as a consequence they can be make it very easy for someone to play to trap your meeple.
Which sounds terribly painful now I think about it.
quite chuffed I managed to "steal" a city from Jr by connecting two meepled city bits. Competitive? Moi? Bien sur, Rodney.
Expansions-wise, it would appear that the new edition has different board graphics but the backs are the same. So you could mix old and new and it'd work (as the face-down tiles look identical); however, it'd look a bit messy.
Z-Man covers it here, with pics:
http://zmangames.com/nouvelles-details.php?id=454
quite chuffed I managed to "steal" a city from Jr by connecting two meepled city bits. Competitive? Moi? Bien sur, Rodney.
You'd have to connect three to steal it, two to share it. (Yell if you want me to explain, save me typing something you already know.)
yep, 2x meepled by me, 1x meepled by him.
<nods> I've just looked through the new rulebook, it's explained pretty well TBH.
Interestingly, some of the terminology has been changed. Your monastery is a cloister in my edition (which I guessed earlier from your post), and the highwayman was originally a thief. I quite approve of that, "monastery" is a more accessible word for kids I expect, and "highwayman" makes more sense thematically for someone loitering on the roads.
I imagine much of it comes from a second (more expensive fee/bigger dictionary) stab at translation from the original german on the back of sales successes.
It's a different publisher, too.
I've been having a think about this. If you want to expand the game, I'd suggest you seek out Inns & Cathedrals. I'd pretty much consider it an essential add-on. New rules aside, it gives you more tiles (handy when you have more players), big meeple which count for two regular meeple (makes stealing land easier) and an extra meeple set for a sixth player. The new rules are entirely optional, and add a bit of variety without too much complexity / breaking the game completely.
One of the nice things about Carcassonne is that you don't have to play with all the various rule additions. For instance, "Traders and Builders" adds goods to the mix which changes the gameplay quite a lot; if you wanted you could happily ignore the "Traders" bit and just play with "Builders" which gives you an extra turn occasionally. Or you can mix and match for variety. See your Abbot - you could choose to use it, or ignore it, depending on what you feel like playing that day.
cheers. will look out for those expansions over the summer.
And while theyre at school I might crack open Catan and have a go at learning the rules.
ION, Catan.
Your game of Catan lives or dies based on your initial starting set-up. When you're learning you don't have the experience to make this decision wisely, so there's a 'first game' layout provided. I'd recommend sticking with this layout until you're all completely comfortable with how the game works.
Don't be scared of trading. This is the meat of the game, we spent ages shying away from this and trading with the bank, which isn't cost-effective and makes a game last for ever. Remember though that only the person who's go it is can initiate a trade, but that trading is free-form and open to negotiation. Eg,
1: "Has anyone got any wood to trade? I'm offering a sheep."
2: "I'll give you a wood for two sheep."
1: "I can't do that, sorry."
3: "I've got a wood spare which you can have for a sheep, so long as you go and put the kettle on."
... would be perfectly valid at our table. (-:
Also of note is that you don't have to accept trade offers. Just because you have something in your hand doesn't mean you have to give it away.
given Jr's propensity to barter anything to get TV time, this could prove either a boon, or extremely costly....
One more flue to sweep and stove to clean and I will go and sit down with the instructions.
(BTW, bit of a win. Got a second edition "s/h" set of Risk from an ebay charity shop. s/h only in that the box had been sat in the sun somewhere for years - the cards/die/armies hadn't even been taken out of their wrappers!)
Yeah, don't tell him that, then. (-:
Never really got on with Risk, because I always played with people who knew it backwards. Think I'd go with an alternate edition if I were to pick it up. Won't be an issue if you're all new to it then.
Never really got on with Risk
The worst thing, for me, about Risk is that it's possible to be out of the game entirely but not be knocked out since you're just no longer a threat. It's bad enough having player elimination in a 2 hour plus game but having it be possible to just be sat there waiting for someone to kill you off for turn after turn is the ultimate in tedium.
bit old school here another vote for Risk - Cluedo - kids cheat but then again that's the real world I guess, Monopoly need a go pro on the banker. Scrabble = except the big people are way too competitive - playing cards? my small people seem to know a lot of games and enjoy teaching them
I know this is not appropriate to the ages groups, but if you get a group of adults, Dead of Winter is great fun. Played a game on Friday night (Saturday nights with this group of friends are reserved for D&D), and had lots of laughs.
I thought Risk was OK at best. The Narnia edition was quirky. However, [url= https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/487/power ]Power[/url] is everything that Risk should have been (It's better/best with 3 or 4 players though)
Sadly we don't seem to be able to gell with SoC, maybe I tried it too early for junior..
twister
If you want something to complement the more involved games how about (apologies if mentioned and missed)-
Bananagrams: Suits almost all ages, games are over very quickly but it's very easy to play lots. Best description I've heard of it is 'freestyle scrabble'- I get bored in scrabble, this is much faster!
Backpacker: Good for games of about 20 minutes, cards so only needs a small surface. Kept four of us entertained on the trains on a long weekend wandering round Belgium and for several hours when the chunnel broke. Very likely to induce Risk level dislike of other players as people get screwed over.
They now introduce farmers as an advanced feature. I can see why - they're can be a bit tricky to get your head round, but they're absolutely core to the game. You want to be playing with farmers as soon as you can.
That makes loads of sense in respect of new players, though would make the game kind of dull and plodding. Farmers make it awkward enough that after the first few weeks, it sat on the shelf for years during regular public game nights I ran. I love the meandering thing Robert Florence [url= http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/08/13/cardboard-children-of-parpellimonies/ ]wrote about it here[/url] (I probably wouldn't recommend Cosmic Encounter for groups aiming to include kids, but it is often hilarious).
Also, a few people mentioned Ticket To Ride earlier: Ticket To Ride Europe adds just a few more things that put it into just the right level of complexity for a sociabe group, IMO.
This thread
I'll put a couple of others into the mix; they are fairly quick but have a lot of life imo.
1. Forbidden Island - Co-op game.
2. Love letter
Both are very popular with my kids and love letter is also popular with the grand parents. Most importantly they're great fun.
Pandemic, another co-op, is also an amazing game but 5 is probably too young for it; but worth buying when they get older.
I never get the love for Love Letter. It's completely stripped of any meaningful decisions and there's not enough game for bluffing or deduction. It more or less plays itself.
Love Small World and Carcassonne, both have really good apps too, and King of Tokyo!
Lost Valley of the Dinosaurs.
"Pteranodon swoops!" Is still a catchphrase around here, 25 years later.
I never get the love for Love Letter.
It's a light game, for sure (and you could probably play it with a normal deck of cards). But it's quite pretty and charming in its way. I hate to stereotype but I wonder if part of it's appeal is that non-gamer partners like it?
IIRC, the same game exists in a different theme (and I think the other pre-dates it), and you rarely hear about that one.
But it's quite pretty and charming in its way.
Maybe the fact that I have the black Japanese edition removes some of the picturesque charm but I can never work out when the fun bit starts.
edit: speaking of light games you can pay with a deck of cards (or even beermats in this case). Skull should have been one of my filler recommendations and everyone should know how to play Perudo.
everyone should know how to play Perudo.
I got horribly addicted to Liar's Dice in Red Dead Redemption. Used to fire up the game just to play it online with a couple of mates.
I got horribly addicted to Liar's Dice in Red Dead Redemption. Used to fire up the game just to play it online with a couple of mates.
It's one of my family's christmas games. MY OH is almost scarily good at it, she often wins without having lost a dice. The only other games she's any good at are Bananagrams and Caverna - no idea what that says about her thought processes.