Fun, quick, light board games

[shadow_archmagi]

I'm looking to round out my board game collection, and I realized that I own a lot of games like Mage Knight that are super cool and elaborate and take hours to set up and even more hours to explain the rules... but not so many at the other end of the totem pole. I'm looking for something along the lines of Sushi Go, Welcome to the Dungeon, or Sentinels of the Multiverse. Any suggestions?

[Blackhawk748]

I'm looking to round out my board game collection, and I realized that I own a lot of games like Mage Knight that are super cool and elaborate and take hours to set up and even more hours to explain the rules... but not so many at the other end of the totem pole. I'm looking for something along the lines of Sushi Go, Welcome to the Dungeon, or Sentinels of the Multiverse. Any suggestions?

I recommend Zombies!!! The rules are extremely simple and all the extra stuff is self explanatory. The set up is also really quick.

Heres the link, Warning its Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Creations-2010TLC-Zombies-Edition/dp/B000HX1NBA)

On top of this it also has expansions you can add in.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Off the top of my head: Tsuro, Love Letter, Coup, The Resistance. Those all qualify, in my mind, as "quick, light board games". That said, you used Sentinels of the Multiverse as an example, so I feel like you have the bar set a little higher in terms of complexity and length than I do, which opens it up a bit. So...there's also Dominion, which can play immensely quickly as you learn the game well, and is dead-simple to explain. Carcassonne works pretty well for this as well, and Ticket to Ride.

For 2 players, Race for the Galaxy is fast, engaging, and not hard to explain, with really quick setup. Tash-Kalar is a neat head-to-head game that gets your brain thinking in cool spatial ways. The Duke is a brain-bending Chess-inspired game where each piece shifts between two movement modes every time you move them. I'll also generally recommend Yomi (the core premise is fairly simple, and the rules aren't too involved, although understanding character matchups requires some detailed investment--straightforward to learn, but more complex as you delve into it).

[The Glyphstone]

Exploding Kittens is right along those lines.

[BlueHerring]

I'll second Carcassone, Ticket to Ride and Dominion. Dominion is great, even if it takes a while to explain sometimes. If you're playing with decently experienced people, the games go by pretty quickly. That, and the box comes with little pockets to separate the cards. I bought my Dominion set five years ago, and it's still in very good shape, all things considered.

[Fri]

Here's what I posted in a similar thread a few months ago.


I for some reason played a lot of "light" boardgame fitting for kids lately, and here's my recommendation on no particular order (and also double as reminder for me in the future)

- Colt Express
Simple game where everyone play as bandits trying to rob a train. Everyone have card that tell how their bandit moves that turn, but the twist is, everyone play their cards in the same time. So someone might try to shoot another person, but at the same turn, that person is jumping to the roof, so they're not there anymore! Is the "heaviest" game here, but still light enough to be explained to all new player in 15 minutes or less. The best part is that it got a 3d cardboard train, so fun!

- Dixit
Every boardgamers knows Dixit. Tell a clue about your card, and everyone else try to pick a card that fits your clue from their hand, and everyone try to guess which one is your card. But a friend of mine mention how Dixit might not be that fitting to kids, in the line of kids at certain age are actually afraid to make mistake/look stupid, and it takes out enjoyment of the game.

- Carcassone
Second heaviest, on certain relative level of heavy. Take turn picking tiles to make a map, then score if you complete something. As a bonus, really easy to store. Just get a cloth bag and put all your tiles there. Done, not even need the box anymore.

- Cockroach Salad/Kakerlaken Salat
Uproaringly simple and hillarious tongue twisting brain busting card party game. There's 4 types of vegetable cards, and 4 type of taboo vegetable cards. Every player take turn putting a card on the table and instantly say what vegetable is that, with an exception, you can't say the same vegetable twice, so if someone before you open a tomato card and say tomato, and in your turn you also open a tomato card, you have to say another vegetable eventhough it's actually tomato. And the taboo vegetable cards that come out once in a while complicate matters even moer.

- Mysterium.
Dixit with plot, basically. One player try to give clues with pictures about a crime, and everyone cooperate to find what does those pictures mean.

- Duplik-
A drawing party game. A tip: laminate some of the provided sheet and draw using dry-erase marker, so you can reuse them instead of copying hundreds of sheets. Everyone take turn to be art director and try to describe a picture the best they can, and everyone else try their best to reproduce that drawing using the director's instruction. But there's a twist, there's a list of things in the drawing that should be in the reproduction, and the director don't know that. Only after everyone reproduce the picture then the instructor read what are supposed to be in the drawing. The drawers and the art director got point if they have those in their reproduction.

I'll add more if I can remember.

Also if you like something slightly heavier but still very quick to setup, my recent favourite game is Say Bye To The Villains. (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/140795/say-bye-villains) If you like coop games you might want to try this. And it's pretty cheap too, because it only consists of some cards. It's one of the few coop games where all of my friends agreed that it's great and everyone enjoyed it. Great theme, great artwork, simple and easily understandable rules, and rather clearly defined semi-hidden information system.

Basically the game works like this. Everyone got Vanquisher with different stats and special abilities, and there are several villains with different stats and abilities. One of their stats is "resources" that give them limited amount of face down resource cards. The resources can range from bodyguards and hidden weapons that give them extra stats, ambushes and traps for the heroes, and additional events that change the victory conditions other than simply beating them. For example, there's "hostage" card which make you instantly lose if the vanquisher set to him have less than 9 speed. Or a "secretly a good guy" card which make you lose if you kill him.

Everyone got limited time, 10 hours, to prepare for the attack at the villains. The time passes by you using cards and special abilities. For example, if you have strength training card you can use two hours to use that card to raise your strength. Or, most importantly, you can use the time to investigate the villains so you won't find any surprises and traps when fighting them later.

Then, after everyone has used the 10 hours assigned to them, everyone attach their vanquisher to a villain (there's always the same number of vanquishers and villains), all the hidden cards are flipped open, and you see if you manages to kill the villains.

You really need coordination between the vanquishers. Also there's this semi-hidden information system, where you can freely discuss everything, except that you're not allowed to say anything about numbers or specific cards. So you can say "this villain is to strong for you" or "I need more time, can anyone give me more time?" But not "this villain have 15 strength total" or "He got hidden pistol and armor."

[gomipile]

The board game groups I play in often use Get Bit! whenever they need something quick. For situations when someone is leaving in an hour or so but we just finished a long game, it's a good choice to start a new game without leaving anyone out.

[shadow_archmagi]

Oh man, Dixit! I haven't played Dixit in ages. That game is truely a delight. I'm going to have to look into Say Bye To The Villains and Tash Kalar!

Dominion I have a beef with because it allows for heavy snowballing, and everyone remembers that nightmare where Steve took a 20 minute turn and played his whole deck.

[The Glyphstone]

Oh man, Dixit! I haven't played Dixit in ages. That game is truely a delight. I'm going to have to look into Say Bye To The Villains and Tash Kalar!

Dominion I have a beef with because it allows for heavy snowballing, and everyone remembers that nightmare where Steve took a 20 minute turn and played his whole deck.

I've gotten real into Ascension instead for these exact reasons. Also a deckbuilding game, but the much larger and more random cardpool and the Market Row keeps the game more dynamic.

[danzibr]

Red Dragon Inn doesn't have a board (so... a card game), but it's really fun, quick, and light.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Dominion I have a beef with because it allows for heavy snowballing, and everyone remembers that nightmare where Steve took a 20 minute turn and played his whole deck.
This is definitely true. Dominion, when the group is experienced enough, frequently boils down to who can most quickly implement the most broken synergy between the cards in the center. It's a combination of whether you can spot the synergy, whether you get the cards needed for the synergy, and whether anything clogs you up along the way.

[VoxRationis]

Oh man, Dixit! I haven't played Dixit in ages. That game is truely a delight. I'm going to have to look into Say Bye To The Villains and Tash Kalar!

Dominion I have a beef with because it allows for heavy snowballing, and everyone remembers that nightmare where Steve took a 20 minute turn and played his whole deck.

Village-moat, village-moat, village-village-moat...
Someone should make a remix video.
I grow tired of Dixit sometimes. It's very mentally exhausting to think about what every other player has in terms of knowledge base (the optimal play for every time you choose the card is to come up with a clue or reference that precisely one person understands), rather than simply how good a move is in and of itself. I understand that every game has a metagame to some extent, but Dixit is almost all metagame.

[gomipile]

I wouldn't really consider deckbuilding games to be fast, because of the amount of setup and cleanup they require.

If you are considering deckbuilding games, though, my current favorite is Barbarossa. We play the anime girl version, but the one with historical pictures has the same rules, so my reasons apply to both equally.

Barbarossa is great because there is more to do than mess about with cards in hand. Each player has a board of infantry, tanks, etc. which gets to do things on their turn. The card and rule interactions are just more interesting to me than in Dominion. Plus, building up forces to attack the cities that give victory points just feels more satisfying than solely building an economic engine to buy victory points, to me.

[shadow_archmagi]

Village-moat, village-moat, village-village-moat...
Someone should make a remix video.
I grow tired of Dixit sometimes. It's very mentally exhausting to think about what every other player has in terms of knowledge base (the optimal play for every time you choose the card is to come up with a clue or reference that precisely one person understands), rather than simply how good a move is in and of itself. I understand that every game has a metagame to some extent, but Dixit is almost all metagame.

Yeah, reference clues that exactly one person understand are tedious and unfun, which means you have to have a certain understanding at the table not to do that. Much like how in Game of Things, you improve your odds of "winning" for giving answers that sound nothing like you, but the most *fun* way to play is to just submit the best joke you can think of.


Red Dragon Inn doesn't have a board (so... a card game), but it's really fun, quick, and light.

I do enjoy Red Dragon Inn, although elimination mechanics are the worst and 'cut the tall poppy' is my least favorite flavor of metagame, so I can play it infrequently.

I'm not really a big deckbuilder person for the reasons mentioned above- They frequently come with an obvious best path, and whoever gets the best starting luck exploits that winning strat first. Also the cleanup is awful.

[gomipile]

One of my gaming groups has been playing Survive: Escape From Atlantis! Now that we all know the rules the setup, play, and cleanup are all much faster than any of the deckbuilding games I've played.

It's also really fun if you all enjoy screwing each other over constantly, since that appears to be the point of the rules' structure.

[Fri]

Oh man yes I forgot abotu that

Survive is absolutely light, fun, easy to set up, and chaotic!

got quite some components, but not so much.

[Malarky]

I'm a huge fan of Resistance. It's a bluffing game best played with a bunch of bastards clever friends.

If you haven't seen it yet, the youtube series from Geek & Sundry, Tabletop, basically only plays quick, light boardgames. Good place to look!

[shadow_archmagi]

I'm a huge fan of Resistance. It's a bluffing game best played with a bunch of bastards clever friends.

If you haven't seen it yet, the youtube series from Geek & Sundry, Tabletop, basically only plays quick, light boardgames. Good place to look!

The only trouble with Resistance is that you've got limited incentive to attack other players; the winning strategy is to wait for them to kill each other.

[Croverus]

I love Red Dragon Inn because my friends play it as an actual drinking game, so when your character is made to drink, you actually take a swig.

Catan is relatively simple and short.

Tokaido is a little complex but enjoyable and also pretty simple.

Evolution is a really fun game that was created through Kickstarter and has an expansion already.

Tsuro is fast and easy to play.

Kahuna is a two player game about controlling land. It takes a bit to understand how exactly scoring works but it's simple once you figure it out and very fast.

Could always use the D&D starter set, where the characters are already made, to see if you can get some "light" board gamer players into something much more complicated. The current edition is simple enough to bring in new players but has enough material that older D&D players and DMs like myself still enjoy it. Run it like a game of Heroquest or Ascension and it can be pretty fun for new players.

[shadow_archmagi]

I love Red Dragon Inn because my friends play it as an actual drinking game, so when your character is made to drink, you actually take a swig.

I've taken it to the next level a couple times where you actually take the time to buy a bunch of boozahols and then match up drinks thematically. Leads to an odd problem where I *want* high alc cards because I can't stand ale/beers.

[Knaight]

The only trouble with Resistance is that you've got limited incentive to attack other players; the winning strategy is to wait for them to kill each other.

If the spies don't get on missions, they lose. I generally find sowing distrust and dissent really useful as a spy, but attacks still have to be set up; it's just often easier to set them up by discrediting enough resistance members that the remaining group must include a spy.

[shadow_archmagi]

If the spies don't get on missions, they lose. I generally find sowing distrust and dissent really useful as a spy, but attacks still have to be set up; it's just often easier to set them up by discrediting enough resistance members that the remaining group must include a spy.

Oh, oops, I was thinking of Coup, not resistance!

[gomipile]

I played Panic Station for the first time last night. If at least a couple players already have some experience, then it falls into this thread's category. Those of us who hadn't played before quickly got the hang of it within a few turns.

[Sam113097]

It's a card game, not a board game, but Munchkin is fun and plays very fast. It's a humorous take on a dungeon crawl, where you draw cards to see what's in the next room, while trying to sabotage your friends.

[shadow_archmagi]

It's a card game, not a board game, but Munchkin is fun and plays very fast. It's a humorous take on a dungeon crawl, where you draw cards to see what's in the next room, while trying to sabotage your friends.

I don't know how YOUR friends play Munchkin, but I always found that it devolved into an absurd grind as everyone refuses to let anyone win. "Oh, Jimmy is level 6? That's pretty high. TOO HIGH. I TRIPLE THE SIZE OF THE HYDRA HE'S FIGHTING. AND I PLAY DIE-FOREVER IF HE LOSES."

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Escape: The Curse of the Temple, Galaxy Trucker, Seven Wonders, Tsuro, and King of Tokyo are all fun, fairly fast games.