My husband and I love to play board games together. These games go beyond the old-fashioned Monopoly, etc. These are modern board games of strategy more than luck.
We have a LOT of board games – it’s a rabbit hole once you get started with less traditional games. These are the ones at the very top of my list.
Spirit Island easily takes the top of the podium for both my and the hubby. It’s fantastic. It’s cooperative, meaning that the players are working together to beat the board, which makes it so much more fun and less competitive.
In this game, each player is an aspect of nature (river, ocean, leaves, rocks, etc.) trying to keep the invaders off the island. (Gotta say, it feels a lot like the premise of Disney’s Pocahontas without the characters.)\
We LOVE it! No two games are the same, there are ways to increase the difficulty level once you’re comfortable, and it’s entertaining. There are also expansion packs available which adid more variety and complexity.
Pandemic is the first board game that my husband and I played together, and we credit it with sending us down the board game rabbit hole. It is also cooperative (the players work as a team to beat the board).
Pandemic is a game about disease outbreak, and the players are the workers (doctors, scientists, researchers, etc.) trying to save the world. (We played it about 5 years before the coronavirus outbreak, which then felt like the game coming to life - not in a good way.)
Legacy games mean that the circumstances of one game effect the next and the game develops as you play more. There are boxes with new tokens, scratch off cards with new scenarios, stickers to change the board, etc. It is so much fun!
Note: There are two versions of Seasion 1 - red and blue. They are the same. Get whichever one has the better price.
Note: There is also a season 0 and season 2. We have played them both. Season 1 is the winner.
This is our top competitive game. It is made for only two players, which is perfect for us. (Most games made for more than 2 players aren’t great with just two.)
The premise of this game is the one player is Nixon trying to finish his presidency and the other player is the press trying to connect evidence of the watergate scandal.
It is elegant in its simultaneous simplicity and complexity. It’s quick once you get the hang of it, and you’ll want to keep playing it again and again.
Votes for Women is a competitive game about the Suffragist movement. One player is the Suffragist movement trying to get enough states to ratify the amendment . The other player is the anti-suffragist movement trying to block the amendment.
The board is a map of the US with pieces that look like green check marks and red Xs - it’s like watching an election map develop. The cards are full of actual people from the time with quotes and history.
Bonus: Included in the box are replicas of documents and newspapers from the time. I put them all on a bulletin board in my daughter’s room. It’s like a little museum display of a very special time.
I have even more Favorite Things lists if you’re interested!
