Board game ideas

[josephus_fl]

Pandemic plays really well with 2/3/4 players.

Off the top of my head I'd consider:

7 Wonders - it's a card drafting game that's pretty easy to play and has no downtime for players as you all take actions simultaneously. Game play is around 30-40 mins

Codenames Picture edition - players split into two teams and each team has one player who gives clues that associate pictures together so that their team picks a hidden selection of picture cards more efficiently than the other team. Games take around 20 mins per round.

Quest for Eldorado - it's a deck building race game. The whole game play is fairly simple and it's a great first stepping stone game into the boardgame hobby where players do more than just throw dice and move along a path. Around 60 mins play time.

Kingdomino - domino style cards are used to create your own kingdom where players are trying to expand terrain types and gain crowns. Game is greater than the sum of its parts and subtly strategic with rules explanation taking a couple of minutes. Games take around 15-20 mins.

SmallWorld - from the same boardgame company that created Ticket To Ride. The game is a 60 min Risk variant where players control mythical races. Turns are quick and your race of characters is destined to die quickly in most cases. Players will select new races between 2-4 times per game. The skill is knowing when to give up on a race and start fresh with a new one. It's a slightly more complex game as each race of characters have their own abilities, but the games comes with great player aids that helps and you only need to know about the abilities for races that are in play. The game has great replay ability.

[Custancia]

I’d echo what Josephus said. Pandemic plays really well as a 2,3 and 4 player games.

I think its possibly slightly easier to win (or save the world, as I prefer to think of it!) as a 2 player - although you can adjust the number of epidemics, which increases the difficulty level if you prefer more of a challenge.

I would definitely recommend having a go as a 2 player game. Carcassonne the castle is my other favourite 2 player.

[Custancia]

Oh - and DD has just reminded me she loves apples to apples (which you can even buy in a Disney version!). A more sociable game.

Every player has a hand of cards with random nouns on (eg “my hair”, “the conservatives”, “London”). Each player takes turns in revealing a descriptive word eg catastophic, hysterical, inspirational. Other players secretly submit a card from their hand which they hope the revealing player will chose as the best match. Its very much a know who you’re playing with kind of game ( or a way to learn about them)
The Disney version has less words, more characters/pictures on the cards so great even with younger less fluent readers.

[Helen J]

Not a board game, but the Sock Game is very good if you're entertaining a range of ages. We had a good laugh playing last year, and 82 year old Nanna won quite a few times.

We always play Trivial Pursuit as well, the family edition, it's much quicker than the old one.

I love Ticket to Ride, but it seems to take ages.