Today’s Top 5 is written by Kevin Haro!

Codenames

Nearly impossible to describe but insanely fun. Here we go. Two teams, 1 code master per team, 25 word cards, and a word association map. The code masters have a list of codes that they try to get their team to guess before the other team guesses their list. See, makes no sense. Go check it out though. We play this every time at game night as a casual wind up or wind down game.

Settlers of Catan

Ever played a board game and felt like your turn was never going to come? Not with Settlers of Catan! I love that Settlers keeps everyone involved throughout the entire game. Easy to learn, difficult to master. Expect this to take some time and thought.

Munchkin

I love Role Playing Games (RPGs) and this is a really easy one where you don’t have to pay a subscription or spend time setting up a character. You start out as a level 1 human and get races, classes, and armor that help you battle monsters. The goal of the game is to be the first to level up to 10. It is a lightweight RPG of bargaining and betrayal. The games can run long with many people, be careful.

Jackbox

Jackbox is a collection of video boardgames everyone jumps into with their phone’s browser. There is no cardboard and there are no figurines, and everyone usually plays on the couch and not around the table. This collection of games is casual and great for parties. My favorite is Quiplash, which is a game where every player gets a prompt and responds to it. Your response better be funny because you get points based on how much the other players like it. Super fun!

Isle of Skye

Want to build out your own Scottish hillside kingdom? Yeah, I didn’t really want to either. But, I gave it a go and it is a pretty fun game. It has good reviews and such from people that play a lot of board games. You start out with a castle tile that begins the map of your kingdom. As the game goes on you attach roads, lakes, and mountain ranges to your kingdom and get all-o-dem points, yo. Oh, there is also money, trading, and other stuff. Easy-ish to learn, difficult to master.

Honorable Mention:

Hearthstone

Not really a board game, but if you don’t want to play games face-to-face with people, this game might be for you! Hearthstone is a Trading Card Game (Money Pit TCG) that you play without pants on your laptop or phone. Games are one-on-one and can last anywhere from 5 – 30-ish minutes. There are also campaign modes if you don’t want to play against real people. Easy to learn, difficult to master.

Fuse hosts Board Game Night every second Saturday. Come check it out!