15. Take 5 & Take A Number
Take 5 & Take A Numberis actually two games in one package, where both games share the same core gameplay butTake 5is better suited to larger groups whileTake A Numberis better for two or three players.
The crux of both games involves playing cards to different sequences while trying not to be the one to play the final card of any sequence—because if you do, you have to take the sequence’s cards.
And taking cards is bad because each collected card scores you points and you’re trying to get thelowestscore.Take 5 & Take A Numberare both simple, easy, with just enough meaningful strategy.
Related:The Best Cheap Board Games and Card Games on a Budget
14. Just One
Every board game collection needs at least one party game, andJust Oneis one of the greatest party games of all time. It’s not a laugh-out-loud game in the style ofTelestrationsorMonikers—it’s better than that.
Just Oneis a cooperative word game where everyone needs to help one player guess a target word, and they do so by each offering just one word. The twist? If multiple write the same word, they cancel out and can’t be shown to the player, making it much harder to guess.
It sounds really simple, but that’s the beauty ofJust One. It’s quick to set up, easy to teach, and a blast to play with nearly any group. Even haters of party-style games tend to like this one!
Related:The Best Party Board Games for Larger Groups (8 or More Players)
13. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong
“Social deduction” has been a hot board gaming genre for many years now, often involving hidden roles, secret player goals, traitorous decisions, and the need for players to suss out everyone’s identities.
But social deduction can be a polarizing genre. These games can be intensely fun emotional roller coasters, but they can also be stressful when you have the hidden role that everyone is trying to uncover.
Which is why I thinkDeception: Murder in Hong Kongis the one social deduction game that every collection should have.
InDeception: Murder in Hong Kong, one person is the Forensic Scientist who can’t speak and must give out clues to help players select the right combination of Evidence and Means to solve the murder.
The crux of the game is trying to interpret the Forensic Scientist’s clues, which are limited and open-ended. The Murderer isn’t trying to hide their own identity, but rather trying to mislead the other players so they select the wrong combination of Evidence and Means.
All in all,Deception: Murder in Hong Kongemphasizes deduction and interpretation over bluffing, resulting in a game that’s far less stressful and a lot more fun for everyone involved.
Related:The Best Social Deduction Board Games
12. Hive Pocket
Hiveis the ultimate introductory board game for people who like the idea of chess but hate chess. This is a two-player, head-to-head game that’s all strategy, zero luck, and easier to play than chess but still deep.
InHive, there is no board; the piecesarethe board. As you play tiles, existing tiles can move around in different ways. For example, the Grasshopper can jump over adjacent tiles while the Ant can crawl around the perimeter as far as it wants to go.
I recommend gettingHive Pocket, which is the portable version that you can play anywhere—even on an airplane. For an abstract strategy game that emphasizes simplicity, there’s no better option thanHive.
Related:The Best Two-Player Board Games for Head-to-Head 1v1 Action
11. Bohnanza
If you enjoy the idea of trading and negotiating with other players, there’s no better game thanBohnanza. This simple card game is the purest form of trading and negotiation distilled.
InBohnanza, you play different types of bean cards to “plant” them, in hopes of harvesting later for profit. But you only have three fields, and each field can only hold a single type of bean at a time.
The key rule ofBohnanzais that you can never rearrange your hand of cards, and you must always plant from the right side. If it’s your turn and you don’t have a field for your next bean, youmustharvest one of your existing fields to make room for it.
Which means you want to get rid of beans in hand that will ruin your plans—so players are constantly trying to trade their cards, resulting in all kinds of deals as players try to maximize their trades.
10. King of Tokyo
There are lots of fun dice games out there, but if I had to recommend one for a starter collection, it would have to beKing of Tokyo.
In this game, one player is “in Tokyo” and everyone else is “outside Tokyo.” On your turn, if you’re in Tokyo, you’ll earn points—but when you’re in Tokyo, everyone else is attacking you! And when you get hit, you can choose to leave Tokyo and be replaced by whoever attacked you.
All of this is done by rolling custom dice, and based on what you roll, you’ll do things like attack other players, restore health points, or gain energy that you can use to play special action cards. You can also reroll any or all dice, up to two times every turn.
King of Tokyois a great introduction to thisYahtzee-style dice-rerolling gameplay. It serves up a nice balance between chaotic fun and tactical decisions, and it plays quickly across all player counts.
Related:The Best Dice Games That Are Really Fun and Worth Adding to Your Collection
9. Welcome to Your Perfect Home
Over the last few years, there’s been an explosion in the popularity of paper-and-pencil games. These often involve rolling dice or flipping cards, making decisions based on the results, and recording those decisions on individual player sheets to score the most points.
Welcome to… Your Perfect Homeis a must-have paper-and-pencil game in any collection because it strikes a perfect balance between simple gameplay, meaningful choices, and beautiful theme.
In this game, you’re trying to complete three streets, each one being a sequence of ascending house numbers. You can only fill in one house number per round, and the number you fill in must be selected from a set of three numbers that are freshly revealed every round.
Every number is also paired with a special ability, which lets you do all kinds of things—build a fence, build a pool, increase or decrease a number, duplicate a house, etc.—that affect your end score.
Welcome to… Your Perfect Homeis a lot simpler than it sounds. It plays fast, it engages players with its decisions, and it has tons of replay value because the numbers and abilities never play out the same way.
Related:The Best Paper-and-Pencil Board Games, Ranked
8. Mint Works
Mint Worksis a fantastic starter board game for three reasons: first, it’s insanely portable; second, it’s a meaty game packed into a short play time; and third, it’s a great introduction to the “worker placement” genre.
Right off the bat, the Altoids-inspired presentation is such an eye-catcher. You can carry this tin anywhere you go, and the white token game pieces resemble mints! If anything, it’s a cool conversation starter.
As for gameplay, you take turns placing your mints on different cards to activate abilities, train more workers, earn resources, or gain points. It’s a quick but tense race to see who can reach 7 points first!
7. Love Letter
Love Letteris one of the simplest card games ever made, comprised of just 16 cards with values from 1 to 8 (some of the lower-valued cards have multiple copies in the deck).
You start with one card in hand and the entire game is played in “draw one, play one” fashion. The goal is to be the one with the highest-value card in hand when the deck runs out.
The twist is that each type of card has a special ability when played, like peeking at someone’s hand, trading hands with someone, or naming a card and eliminating a player if they have that card in hand.
Each round ofLove Letterplays really fast, and you keep playing until someone is first to win a set number of rounds.
Love Letteris a must-have in any collection because it’s just so easy to knock out a few rounds no matter the circumstance. Plus, there’s no setup time! It’s the ultimate filler game.
Related:The Best Quick Filler Board Games You Can Play in Under 30 Minutes
6. Carcassonne
Carcassonnehas been around for more than two decades and is still beloved by many. It’s a classic of modern board gaming, primarily because it appeals to pretty much everyone.
At heart,Carcassonneis a tile placement game. On your turn, you draw a random tile and add it to the board, then place one of your tokens on one of the features (e.g. road, farmlands, cities) of the tile you just added.
When an added tile ends up completing a feature—like being the final tile that creates a full road—that feature is scored based on whoever made claim to that feature while it was being built.
The “draw one, play one” aspect makesCarcassonneeasy to learn and play, and the tile placement aspect is just fascinating to witness. It’s a solid entry into the tile placement genre.
5. Dominion
Dominionis the father of the entire deckbuilding genre of board games. A deckbuilding game is one where each player has their own personal deck of cards that they can grow and modify during play.
To this day,Dominionis deckbuilding in its purest form. Everyone starts with the same basic deck and everyone buys cards from a shared market, but everyone’s deck will diverge wildly by the end.
The goal is to acquire victory point cards, for which you’ll need money cards—but drawing money cards from your deck isn’t easy, so you’ll also need other kinds of cards to modify and cycle through your deck.
Dominionis still one of the best games for introducing people to deckbuilding gameplay, making it an important starter game staple in any burgeoning board game collection.
Related:The Best Deckbuilding Board Games and Card Games, Ranked
4. Kingdomino Origins
Kingdomino Originsis a much-improved follow-up to the originalKingdomino, which includes the original base gameplay but also includes an optional new game mode that adds a lot more depth.
The core idea ofKingdominois that you take turns drafting from a set of tiles that you use to build out your personal kingdom—but your choice of tile in one round determines your drafting order in the next round. If you take the worst tile now, you get first pick next round!
In the base game, you’re mainly trying to match tiles to create large regions of different terrain types. In the new mode ofKingdomino Origins, you also gain resources that you can spend on Cavemen tokens that grant you additional points based on your tile layout.
Kingdomino Originsstrikes a fine balance between accessibility, strategic and tactical depth, and satisfying gameplay. The chunky tiles are fun to handle, and seeing your completed kingdom is just so rewarding.
Note:There’s another family-style tile placement board game that’s slightly different but equally good:Cascadia. Both are fantastic and you can’t go wrong with either one!
Related:The Best Puzzle Board Games That Are Thinky and Fun
3. Ticket to Ride: Europe
Ticket to Rideis perhaps the greatest board game to come out of the 2000–2005 era. Not only does it feel like a board game in the traditional sense, but it’s supremely fun and engaging to this day.
The basic idea of the game is to collect sets of different train cards, which you then spend to construct routes on the map. Every player also has unique contracts, which grant bonus points if they can successfully connect different cities across the map.
Ticket to Ride: Europetakes the original game and improves on it across the board, resulting in a more refined experience that doesn’t lose any of the heart that made the original so great to begin with.
What’s the difference betweenTicket to RideandTicket to Ride: Europe?Both are essentially the same game, butEuropehas a more balanced map and a new gameplay feature called Stations that makes the game less cutthroat and more strategic.
Related:The Best Board Games With Trains, Ranked
2. The Quacks of Quedlinburg
The Quacks of Quedlinburgwas a smash hit the moment it released in 2018, and it remains one of the greatest board games of all time in terms of sheer fun, excitement, and addictiveness.
In this game, every player has their own bag of potion ingredients, which starts off with mostly bad stuff in it. Each round, players repeatedly reach inside their bags and pull out ingredients to add to their cauldron. But if you add too many bad ones, your potion explodes!
The Quacks of Quedlinburgis the ultimate push-your-luck board game, often compared to a slot machine because you’re always itching for one more reach into the bag to see what you might get. Do you risk blowing up your cauldron to advance your potion a little bit more?
This is a game of risk management, of shaping your own luck, of deciding what to add to your bag to best influence your odds every round. If that appeals to you, thenThe Quacks of Quedlinburgis a must-have.
Related:The Best Push-Your-Luck Board Games and Card Games
1. The Crew: Mission Deep Sea
Anyone who grew up playing trick-taking card games likeHearts,Spades, orEuchreunderstands how addictive the genre can be. How much more fun would it be to play acooperativetrick-taking game?
Enter,The Crew: Mission Deep Sea. In this game, task cards are distributed amongst all players, and everyone must work together so that every player can accomplish all of their tasks.
Example tasks: “Win fewer tricks than everyone else,” “Win a trick with total value of 23,” “Win every 9-value card,” and “Win the last trick.”
There are 96 different task cards of varying difficulties, and every game is played with a randomized combination of them, resulting in infinite replayability as players work together to win and lose tricks in the right way to ensure everyone acquires the cards they need.
And did I mention that communication is forbidden? Other than a one-time token that can be used to reveal limited information about a single card in your hand. This aspect elevatesThe Crew: Mission Deep Seaand puts it among the best card games ever created.
Even people who hate trick-taking card games find that they enjoyThe Crew: Mission Deep Sea—the cooperative angle makes it an entirely different experience—which is why this should be a staple game in every board gamer’s collection.
Related:The Best Board Games for Three Players
Level Up Your Board Game Collection
Ultimately, your board game collection isyourcollection. If a game doesn’t grab your interest, or if you think it won’t be a good fit for your own group of potential gamers, go ahead and skip it.
That said, the joy of board gaming goes beyond just the board games themselves. It’s the full experience of game night—the atmosphere, the lighting, the table, the people—that brings it all together.
Once you have a solid collection, you may want to look into some useful board gaming accessories that’ll further improve your game nights.
Read next:The Best Board Game Accessories for Better Game Nights
