I intended to start a rewatch of The Orville a while back — despite my somewhat disparaging assessment of the first few episodes, I ended up liking the series a lot overall — but time never really permitted me to take on an ongoing project like that. This story started as a series of shorter posts meant for Bluesky (follow me!) and it’s still taken an embarrassingly long amount of time to put together, but since this spot’s been laying dormant for some time and I’ve been thinking about the subject a lot lately, I decided to expand on it a bit and revive my Medium blog.
So then! Board games. I like board and tabletop games a lot. As a naturally shy person, I’ve always found that having an objective aside from pure conversation helps distract me from my own anxiety, and allows my personality to come out more in social situations. I don’t have an awful lot of experience in the more advanced Euro-style games of today (the numerous components and abstract nature of your actions can be… intimidating), but I did grow up with the classics: Clue, Jenga, Uno, and so on. Then for Christmas in 2021, some friends of ours gifted us a copy of Ticket to Ride Europe. I’d been vaguely aware of TTR as a franchise before — you don’t hang out in the same geeky circles I do without at least absorbing some info on the big names through pure osmosis — TTR, Catan, Pandemic, etc. But I finally had a copy of TTR. And then I played it. A game that seemed so complicated on its surface, what with its thick deck of cards and hundreds of tiny plastic trains, all finally made sense. It’s not complicated: there are only four actions you can take on any given turn. Four! And most of the time, you don’t even use one or two of them! I found myself thoroughly enjoying my experience with Ticket to Ride, so much so that it motivated me to dig into even more modern games.
That was the moment I started thinking of myself as an Amateur Board Game Guy, and I ended up getting FOUR more games the following Christmas, which sort of cemented the idea.
I’ll probably still keep my distance from the more involved Euro games, won’t touch things that involve models like Star Wars X-Wing or Warhammer, and I don’t think I have the improvisation skills I’d need for an RPG, not to mention the time… but I’m always happy when I find a new tabletop diversion.
So then, here are 9 of my favorite board games, ranked from the ones I find most enjoyable to least enjoyable, as well as quick descriptions and personal reflections on what makes them fun. To be clear, these aren’t even technically ALL the games I own — it doesn’t include the Pokémon Trading Card Game, Clue, or our more family-oriented titles — these are just the ones I vibe with personally, and I’ll talk a little bit about what I consider to be their strengths and weaknesses.
All photos in this post are by me.
Scrabble
A classic that doesn’t need much introduction. If you’re a word nerd of any caliber, you probably already know and love it: intense and gripping as a head-to-head game, leisurely fun in groups of 3 or more.
How do you play?
Use your 7 random letter tiles to build a word on the board, play on bonus squares to score higher, and play multiple words at once for even more. If you can’t play a good word on your turn, you can gamble and swap out tiles from your rack in the hopes of getting better tiles for next turn. In more competitive settings, you can bluff and play words that may not be valid, but if another player challenges you and the Scrabble dictionary doesn’t back you up, you lose your turn. The game ends when one person plays their last tile.
Pros and cons
Scrabble’s somewhat slow pace and reliance on an extensive vocabulary doesn’t appeal to everyone, but for anyone willing to learn the strategies (and all the two-letter words), there’s a deep, rich game to be found. I’ve heard it argued before, in fact, that at its heart, Scrabble is more about math than words — this might explain why its English version appeals so much even to non-native speakers.
One of the big advantages of enjoying a game that’s been around for so long is the many different variants of the core set — as shown above, I have a Diamond version that includes black and silver tiles, a board that rotates, a slightly raised game grid, and it all folds up into itself with a built-in handle for travel. Nifty!
I play a fair amount of Scrabble in my downtime on my phone — as well as the benighted, inferior Words With Friends — but it’s not a game I really picked up until after I’d already moved away from home; I suspect there’s just something about it that doesn’t appeal as much to younger players. I do however have fond memories from my time working at a TV news station of challenging one of the main anchors to the occasional game, and despite his good working vocabulary, I still always managed to come out on top.
As a well-recognized brand owned by a major corporation, there is of course a digital version called “Scrabble GO.” I think their modern mobile app is doing too much to chase the non-Scrabble-like, microtransaction-driven mobile game churn of WWF, but thankfully you can turn off most of those additional features if you want to focus solely on the main game.
Camel Up
I’ve described it before as combining “two of my favorite things: gambling and Mario Party bullshit.” The premise sounds simple — you’re betting on a camel race — but it has a unique twist.
How do you play?
The camels move according to dice rolls. Only 5 dice can be rolled per leg of the race, and when one camel moves to share a space with another, they stack. Camels closer to the top of the stack are judged to be further along in the race — so for a stack of Blue-Purple-Red-Yellow-Green, Blue would be in first place, Purple in second, and so on down the stack. Players take turns making bets, trying to influence the camels with their spectator tiles, or moving the race along by rolling the dice.
Pros and cons
The game is extremely accessible, I’ve found — no group I’ve played it with has ever seemed to dislike it, and I credit that to the simple rules and relatively low amount of strategy involved. That can be a double-edged sword, of course; if you’re HOPING for something with a greater focus on strategy, Camel Up may not be for you. But in a relatively casual setting, the game shines — the only penalty for any bad bet is the loss of a single coin and you can’t go into debt, so players can easily engage without stressing about risk. Needless to say, if you’re averse to gambling you’ll want to skip this one… but after recent plays, a family friend who’s a high school senior AND my dad, a literal, 72-year-old senior, both took an immediate shine to it. (We ended up buying a copy for our friend on her birthday.)
“And what’s the name of that game again?” my dad asked. “Camel…?”
“Camel Up,” I reminded him.
“Camel Up,” he echoed thoughtfully. “Hrm.”
I wouldn’t be at all shocked if my parents have their own copy next time we visit.
I should say, by the way, that I only learned of Camel Up’s existence through the Canadian sketch comedy & gaming troupe LoadingReadyRun, who have often named it as one of their favorite games. I love LRR’s inclusive, friendly vibe, and I’d encourage more folks to seek them out and subscribe.
Anyway, as far as the game, I do have one slight pet peeve among all this praise: while the art in the newest versions of the game is markedly better than the relatively utilitarian art from previous printings, the pop-up palm tree — while certainly impressive — can also get in the way at a crowded table. I wish there was a way to remove it without damaging the game.
Boggle
Another classic for word nerds. Each round is spent in silent, solo desperation as you struggle to find every last word you can. Grueling but rewarding with larger groups.
How do you play?
Shake a 4x4 grid of letter cubes to randomize them, then set a timer for 3 minutes and find as many words as you can by connecting letters together in the order they appear in the word. You can connect letters in any direction including diagonally. At the end of a round, everyone compares words and strikes out duplicates — only unique words are counted.
Pros and cons
Like Scrabble, since the game is primarily about words, having an extensive vocabulary helps. However, unlike vanilla Scrabble, there’s also a time limit to consider, which can be good or bad depending on how you prefer to play.
When I was in college, a friend quickly realized that I came out of my shell while playing board games, so our friend group began playing Boggle on a regular basis. After we’d done this a while, my friend bought and customized a handful of tiny spiral notebooks for us to use as game sheets. That miniature pad with foam lettering attached proclaiming me “BOGGLE MASTER” is still one of the most thoughtful gifts I’ve ever gotten.
I haven’t checked in on Boggle’s official mobile version or any of its knockoff competitors in a while, but these days I have to imagine it’s just as overloaded with features and ads as Scrabble GO.
Ticket to Ride Europe
Become a railway tycoon and build your lines as far as you can across Europe! This version introduces a few additional rules over its American variant, but is otherwise essentially the same.
How do you play?
Starting with a handful of destinations your line must run through, use colored train cards to claim routes. Pick up new ticket cards for more destinations to expand your line, or build train stations to use another player’s route if you’re in a pinch. The trains you play and connections you complete score you points, but the value of any connections you can’t make by the end of the game is deducted from your score, and there’s a bonus for the player with the longest continuous line.
Pros and cons
The hardest thing I’ve found for people to understand about the game is the concept of plotting out your line to reach the specific destinations you’re aiming for; once when I was playing with a first-timer, they used their turns to claim a series of seemingly random routes between cities, and at the end of the game, they confessed it WAS random: they hadn’t understood they were supposed to be connecting the destinations on their ticket cards. Beyond that, it’s actually quite simple while also offering a bit of strategy — a very good entry point for anyone without a lot of board game experience.
There are also official digital adaptations of TTR: the current version was released in 2023, and the Europe rule set is available as an option in the base game.
Parks
Controlling a pair of hikers, experience nature and visit as many national parks as you can in the span of four seasons.
How do you play?
Move your hikers down a trail that evolves and changes with each season. Collect tokens representing natural sights to pay the cost of visiting a park; each park you visit is worth points at the end of the game, and visited parks feed into overarching bonuses as well. You can also take snapshots for extra points, and collect canteens & gear that grant you special abilities.
Pros and cons
It’s easy to get a little lost during your first play due to the different mechanics — the company’s own setup video just came off to me as confusing — but there’s a warm, cozy energy to Parks that draws you in. The additional game elements like gear, canteens, and the camera allow for numerous different strategies once you’re familiar with how they work, and you can try something new every time you play. The art is also *gorgeous* —it comes from the Fifty-Nine Parks Print Series, celebrating the beauty of America’s national parks, and as a result, this is easily the best-looking game I own. I also love that all the components fit neatly inside the relatively small game box, and those components feel incredibly well-made.
Parks also includes a handy solo mode, for when you want to play, but no one else does — that’s what the wolf cards are for in the photo above.
As far as I know, no official digital version of Parks exists, but to me it’s not the kind of game that would feel right in a digital format — to be truly appreciated, I think it NEEDS to be played in-person.
Balderdash
Another one I picked up during my college years, it’s a creative game about lying! All in good fun, of course.
How do you play?
A judge reads a prompt from a card — an obscure word to be defined, filling in a blank for an archaic law on the books, or an old movie title whose premise you must describe — and writes down the actual answer. The other players must write down their own alternate answers. The judge reads off all the responses, and the group votes on which one they think is correct. Garnering votes with your answer or guessing the correct one scores points.
Pros and cons
Balderdash is great with a group of 5 or 6 players — it allows for enough variation to spot fakes, but also enough doubt to make some of the fake answers more plausible. You CAN technically play a version of this game with 2 or 3 people, but it’s really not advisable since you get so few responses. Also, since it relies on a certain level of improvisation, this style of game may not be for everyone… but a half-decent writer would probably love it.
If you like Balderdash’s premise but wish it came with 100 percent fewer physical components and 150 percent more snark, Jackbox’s “Fibbage” series is a digital version of this same type of bluffing game that’s also great fun at parties. All you need is a device to run the game (Jackbox Games are on a wide variety of platforms), a screen to show it on, and a mobile device for each player to interact with.
Wingspan
Build your own preserve of feathered friends and use their special “bird powers” to interact and compete with other players over the course of four rounds.
How do you play?
Collect food, play birds into each habitat within your preserve, lay eggs, and collect more birds to play later. Wingspan’s manual calls it an “engine-building” game, where the key to winning big relies on finding synergies between your birds’ abilities. Each round has a special bonus for having the most birds in a specific habitat, laying the most eggs in a certain type of nest, or some other criteria. Points are collected from the birds you played, extra birds you tucked under your played birds, food caches on your played birds, bonuses you made, and eggs you laid.
Pros and cons
Judging the book by its cover, the art is very nice — everything has a sort of rustic, painterly look which is patently charming. The wide variety of bird powers and ways to score can make the actual game a little intimidating, but the higher level of strategy may appeal to you, and the sheer number of included birds and their possible combinations means your play can be different pretty much every time. Due to its large number of components, Wingspan does take slightly more time and space to set up than the average game; like Parks, there’s also a solo mode, but the setup is so elaborate that I’d usually rather just play the digital version instead if I’m in the mood for it. (That adaptation, by the way, also has an achingly beautiful soundtrack, and plenty of authentic ornithological ambiance.)
Monopoly
The quintessential board game, made to remind you that there are no winners in capitalism without significantly more losers.
How do you play?
Roll dice to move around a board, purchase properties and utilities, and make deals with other players. When another player lands on your space, they owe you rent, and the more you invest into a property, the more rent they will owe. Make deals with your fellow landlords to strategize and stay out of the hole. The last player to avoid bankruptcy wins.
Pros and cons
The biggest drawback to Monopoly aside from its rather depressing theme is its typically long play time — games can last anywhere from 30 minutes to multiple hours depending on how fast players move, how lucky they are with the dice, and how well they manage their assets. Truly, it’s a marathon and not a sprint… unless of course your 11-year-old happens to get lucky enough to buy Park Place AND the Boardwalk in their first few turns, and promptly bankrupts both their parents so they can go back to playing with their friends on the PC. Don’t ask me how I know that.
Its quintessential nature also means there are hundreds of variants on the market to choose from — don’t want to deal with paper money? There’s a version with debit cards. Wanna bend the rules? There’s a cheater’s edition. Wish you were losing while looking at your favorite licensed characters instead? Buddy, have I got news for you.
As I may have mentioned previously, it’s become a grudging tradition in our family to play Monopoly every Thanksgiving — it’s the only time we’ve all got so little to do that we can typically avoid any relationship-ending arguments (being zonked out of our minds on tryptophan also helps). I understand why more people don’t jibe with the game, but I’m a sicko so I like it anyway.
Catan
Develop settlements on an island rich with resources and compete with other players to build the best civilization.
How do you play?
Hex tiles are assembled randomly within the board’s outer grid. Resource collection is based on dice rolls and affects all players, and each hex tile yields a different type of resource. Players are encouraged to trade amongst themselves, with merchants at a harbor, or with the bank to secure the resources they need. They then expend those resources to build roads, found additional settlements, and unlock new developments. A dice roll of 7 summons the Robber, which decimates players’ resource supply and can prevent them from collecting more from a given site until the Robber moves again.
Pros and cons
I’m not sure whether this was an intentional ludonarrative decision, but I appreciate that the dice roll required to activate the Robber is the most common combination you can roll from a standard pair of six-sided dice. It effectively communicates the ubiquity of hardship in frontier life, and the shared paucity inflicted on players during a “bad roll” encourages some amount of cooperation even in spite of the competition between them.
In fairness to Catan, I’ve only ever played it with two people (the box recommends at least three) and trade between just two players is hardly ideal. It mostly boils down to rolling the dice, asking the other player “got any wool?”, and ending your turn when the answer is inevitably no.
I do see the potential, though; Catan’s been around nearly 30 years, and there’s something undoubtedly satisfying about watching your tiny towns grow over time — like manifest destiny without all the violence. Setup is a little fiddly due to the mix-and-match hex nature of the board, and the manual is organized in a weird way, but that mix-and-match board does mean no two games play quite the same. It’s still at the bottom of my list for now, but only because I haven’t had a proper play.
As I said at the outset, I like games a lot, and sadly I don’t get to play them as often as I’d like. So I guess that’s what this was all for — if I can’t play more, I might as well evangelize about the games I like. If you’ve been reluctant to mess around with a classic like Scrabble or Monopoly, or if you’d never heard of Camel Up or Parks, hopefully this will encourage you to get out there and try something.
Maybe you and I can sit down for a round together someday. I’d like that.
