Gift Guides: All in the Family!
We are back with another curated Gift Guide! This time for that awesome board game family in your life. Do they all love hanging out and playing a low strategy game together? Do they have their own night of the week that they hang out at home and play games? If the answer is yes, this is the list for you!
As of posting, all of these games are currently in stock!
Ticket to Ride
- 2-5 players
- 60 mins
- Ages 8+
With elegantly simple gameplay, Ticket to Ride can be learned in under 15 minutes. Players collect cards of various types of train cars they then use to claim railway routes in North America. The longer the routes, the more points they earn. Additional points come to those who fulfill Destination Tickets – goal cards that connect distant cities; and to the player who builds the longest continuous route.
Catan
- 3-4 players
- 60 mins
- Ages 10+
In Catan, players try to be the dominant force on the island of Catan by building settlements, cities, and roads. On each turn dice are rolled to determine what resources the island produces. Players build by spending resources (sheep, wheat, wood, brick and ore) that are depicted by these resource cards; each land type, with the exception of the unproductive desert, produces a specific resource: hills produce brick, forests produce wood, mountains produce ore, fields produce wheat, and pastures produce sheep.
Sagrada
- 1-4 players
- 45 mins
- Ages 14+
Draft dice and use the tools-of-the-trade in Sagrada to carefully construct your stained glass window masterpiece. Each player builds a stained glass window by building up a grid of dice on their player board. Each board has some restrictions on which color or shade (value) of die can be placed there. Dice of the same shade or color may never be placed next to each other. Dice are drafted in player order, with the start player rotating each round, snaking back around after the last player drafts two dice. Scoring is variable per game based on achieving various patterns and varieties of placement…as well as bonus points for dark shades of a particular hidden goal color.
Splendor
- 2-4 players
- 30 mins
- Ages 10+
Splendor is a game of chip-collecting and card development. Players are merchants of the Renaissance trying to buy gem mines, means of transportation, shops—all in order to acquire the most prestige points. If you’re wealthy enough, you might even receive a visit from a noble at some point, which of course will further increase your prestige.
Dungeon Decorators
- 2-4 players
- 40+ mins
- Ages 10+
Dungeon Decorators is a competitive “light euro” tile-drafting strategy game. Select tiles that give you the right combination of chilling chambers, harrowing hallways and dire decorations, then play goal cards to score points. The player who scores the most points achieves victory by impressing the client and setting them on their path to becoming the next legendary evil!
D&D Dungeon Scrawlers
- 2-4 players
- 15 mins
- Ages 10+
In Dungeons & Dragons: Dungeon Scrawlers – Heroes of Undermountain, you and other adventurers are drawn together to delve into Undermountain, an immense underground of dungeons created by the Mad Mage, Halaster Blackcloak. Use your markers to trace your path, defeating monsters, casting spells, connecting artifact fragments, and collecting shiny treasure on the way! The round ends when one player defeats that dungeon’s mighty boss, so you have only a few minutes to collect as much loot as possible. The player with the most points after exploring three dungeons wins!
Kabuto Sumo
- 2-4 players
- 15 mins
- Ages 10+
Kabuto Sumo is a game where you are one of the contending beetles that is battling for supremacy in the ring and your place in the pantheon of legendary wrestlers. The gameplay of Kabuto Sumo resembles the coin-pusher arcade games in which you strategically drop quarters and anxiously anticipate coins cascading off the platform. This game features a similar experience, with you trying to strategically slide pieces onto the board and push the other players out of the ring. It’s an exciting combination of dexterity, strategy, and luck.
Azul
- 2-4 players
- 40 mins
- Ages 8+
In Azul, players take turns drafting colored tiles from suppliers to their player board. Later in the round, players score points based on how they’ve placed their tiles to decorate the palace. Extra points are scored for specific patterns and completing sets; wasted supplies harm the player’s score. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.
Camel Up
- 3-8 players
- 45 mins
- Ages 8+
In Camel Up, up to eight players bet on five racing camels, trying to suss out which ones will place first and second in a quick race around a pyramid. The earlier you place your bet, the more you can win — should you guess correctly, of course. Camels don’t run neatly, however, sometimes landing on top of another one and being carried toward the finish line. Who’s going to run when? That all depends on how the dice come out of the pyramid dice shaker, which releases one die at a time when players pause from their bets long enough to see who’s actually moving!
