15+ Awesome Board Games That Will Help You Conquer Boredom While Under Quarantine

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Chronicles of Crime

Chronicles of Crime is a cooperative game of criminal investigation mixing board game, an app and a touch of Virtual Reality. You and your team will be put on crime cases, moving all around town, interviewing suspects or witnesses, and searching for clues in 3D scenes!

One of best investigative games. Very immersive and involved detective game where you actually investigate scenes, discover evidence, interrogate suspects, and try to solve a mystery. There are various degrees of difficulty for all ages.

Star Wars: Rebellion

In Star Wars: Rebellion, you control the entire Galactic Empire or the fledgling Rebel Alliance. You must command starships, account for troop movements, and rally systems to your cause. Featuring more than 150 plastic miniatures and two game boards that account for thirty-two of the Star Wars galaxy’s most notable star systems, Star Wars™: Rebellion aspires to be as large and sweeping as the Star Wars universe itself.

Do you love Star Wars? Do you love immersive games where you look up from the table and realize three hours have just passed by? Many have described it as “Star Wars in a box”, and I tend to agree with them. The constant tension placed on the rebel player to try and stay one step ahead of the massive machine that is the empire is palpable. As the Empire, the frustration of having to spread out more and more as your search for the Rebel base draws on, watching the seeds of rebellion starting to blossom, is counter balanced by the shear unadulterated power you have at your finger tips.

Ticket to Ride

Ticket to Ride is a cross-country train adventure where players collect cards of various types of train cars that enable them to claim railway routes connecting cities throughout North America.

This game is probably the favorite in our family! You can make it competitive or friendly for the little kids. The pieces are well made and the artistry is great. You can’t get bored because you always get new routes. The adults love it because it’s not to simple but the kids can play without help. Phenomenal game for family!

Betrayal at House on the Hill

Betrayal at House on the Hill is a tile game that allows players to build their own haunted house room by room, tile by tile, creating a new thrilling game board every time. The game is designed for three to six people, each of whom plays one of six possible characters.

Anyone who loves B-Movie horror films needs this in their life. The modular board, various characters, and excellent ‘randomised’ Haunt mechanic produce an amazing degree of replayability. Not knowing who will be turning against the rest of the group until the Haunt happens makes this extra precarious – as if one player is getting all the items then turns, you’re in for a rough time.

King of Tokyo

Play mutant monsters, gigantic robots and other monstrous creatures, rampaging the city and vying for position as the one and only King of Tokyo! Combine your dice to gather energy, heal your monster or just slap the other monsters down! Spend your energy to trigger permanent or one-shot special powers: a second head, body armor, nova death ray… Stop at nothing to become the King of Tokyo… but that’s when the real trouble begins for you!

The most fun game to play with anyone! Easy to learn, tons of monsters, tons of dice rolling, quick and painless as you can not get mad at each other because it is purely luck driven game. Superbly balanced and just a ton of laugh-out-loud fun.

Splendor

Splendor is a game of chip-collecting and card development. Players are merchants of the Renaissance trying to buy gem mines, means of transportation, shops—all in order to acquire the most prestige points. If you’re wealthy enough, you might even receive a visit from a noble at some point, which of course will further increase your prestige.

The simple rules, variability every-time you play it, and yet complex strategy is an elegance not matched by any other board game. This is one of those games that you can explain while playing the first few rounds and yet is incredibly deep without being too prone to over-analysis, though admittedly those players will do pretty well in this game.The best thing about this game, though, and what really sends it over the top for me is the pure-engine building experience that snowballs out of control. It is like pushing a snowball down a hill and it lightly glides just to suddenly gain incredible size and speed and smash against a mountain wall. When you are 50% way to victory, the game is probably 90% over, and as a result, every game feels close.

Catan

In Catan, players try to be the dominant force on the island of Catan by building settlements, cities, and roads. On each turn dice are rolled to determine what resources the island produces. Players collect these resources (cards)—wood, grain, brick, sheep, or stone—to build up their civilizations to get to 10 victory points and win the game.

One of the all time greats. It’s not too complicated and can be picked up fairly easily, and thus is ideal from young to old. Perfect gateway game for people who’ve never played anything beyond Monopoly, but also a lot of fun for experienced players. 3-4 players

Carcassonne

Inspired by the medieval fortress in southern France of the same name, Carcassonne is a tile-laying game in which players fill in the countryside around the fortified city. Players choose from tiles that depict cities, roads, monasteries, and fields; each new tile placed creates an ever-expanding board on which players can then add their followers. Players score points by having followers on features as they’re completed. The player who makes the most strategic placements of tiles and followers will score the most points and win the game.

This game is so deserving of the label “classic”. It plays very differently at different player counts, but never disappoints. The meeples are iconic. It can be taught in 3 minutes and enjoyed for years. The perfect level of chance, opportunities for mean strategy, great playtime arc, and lovely art make this ths perfect first choice for any new game collection, while remaining something that won’t ever be outgrown.

Codenames

The two rival spymasters know the secret identities of 25 agents. Their teammates know the agents only by their CODENAMES. The teams compete to see who can make contact with all of their agents first. Spymasters give one-word clues that can point to multiple words on the board. Their teammates try to guess words of the right color while avoiding those that belong to the opposing team. And everyone wants to avoid the assassin.

One of the best party games out there. Really gets you thinking, but it’s very simple. Just connect the dots among words on a table, but can your friends think like you do? Excellent design. Simple to teach. Accessible.

Root

Root is a game of woodland might and right. Stalk the woods as one of the Vagabonds, seize the initiative with the Eyrie birds of prey, rule over your subjects as the Marquise de Cat, or command the Woodland Alliance to create a new order. With creatures and cunning, you’ll rule a fantastic forest kingdom in the ultimate asymmetric game of adventure and war.

Great game with many possibilities! The asymmetry combined with the artwork makes Root a super compelling game. Fom solo to full player counts there always feels like there’s something to discover.

Terraforming Mars

Corporations are competing to transform Mars into a habitable planet by spending vast resources, and using innovative technology to raise temperature, create a breathable atmosphere, and make oceans of water. As terraforming progresses, more and more people will immigrate from Earth to live on the Red Planet. In Terraforming Mars, you control a corporation with a certain profile. Play project cards, build up production, place your cities and green areas on the map, and race for milestones and awards!

Outstanding game that is really easy to pick up. Diversity is great and every game never feels the same. Great art and theme. Strategic but not very deep.

Pandemic

As skilled members of a disease-fighting team, you and the other players work together to keep the world safe from outbreaks and epidemics. Only through teamwork will you have a chance to find a cure. Pandemic is a cooperative board game in which players work as a team to treat infections around the world while gathering resources for cures.

Quite possibly the best cooperative game of all time. No other games I have played are as streamlined and, at the same time, as nerve wreckingly exciting to play as Pandemic.

7 Wonders

Lead an ancient city as it rises to become a world power in 7 Wonders, a competitive civilization building game set in the ancient Mediterranean and designed by Antoine Bauza. You might fortify your city and assault your neighbors in search of military victory, create a haven for artisans, scientists, and philosophers, or focus your economy and profit from trade.

Excellent civilization building drafting game. 2-7 players, 30min playtime with a card drafting mechanic. The only downside is teaching the game may take some time, but it’s time well spent.

Gloomhaven

Gloomhaven is a game of Euro-inspired tactical combat in a persistent world of shifting motives. Players will take on the role of a wandering adventurer with their own special set of skills and their own reasons for travelling to this dark corner of the world. Players must work together out of necessity to clear out menacing dungeons and forgotten ruins.

Gloomhaven is an amazing game of amazing mechanics and epic proportions. This is DnD for those of us who don’t need to spend an hour describing our tunic. Dungeon crawl feeling with RPG style level ups and lots of variety in enemies.

Dominion

You are a monarch, like your parents before you, a ruler of a small pleasant kingdom of rivers and evergreens. Unlike your parents, however, you have hopes and dreams! You want a bigger and more pleasant kingdom, with more rivers and a wider variety of trees. You want a Dominion! In all directions lie fiefs, freeholds, and feodums. All are small bits of land, controlled by petty lords and verging on anarchy. You will bring civilization to these people, uniting them under your banner.

But wait! It must be something in the air; several other monarchs have had the exact same idea. You must race to get as much of the unclaimed land as possible, fending them off along the way. To do this you will hire minions, construct buildings, spruce up your castle, and fill the coffers of your treasury. Your parents wouldn’t be proud, but your grandparents, on your mother’s side, would be delighted.”

Fantastic game, simple mechanics with very satisfying gameplay. Good mix of tactical and strategic considerations. Most of all, the deck-building mechanic is novel and brilliant, creating an entire genre and game-space that did not exist prior.

Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization

Through the Ages is a civilization building game. Each player attempts to build the best civilization through careful resource management, discovering new technologies, electing the right leaders, building wonders and maintaining a strong military.

This is the computer game Civilization completely transformed into a board game. I thought that without a map it would not work, but I was very wrong. It somehow has captured all the finer points of what makes Civilization great, from happiness to science, and although there is a lot of book-keeping, it comes together amazingly well.

Scythe

Scythe is an engine-building, asymmetric, competitive board game set in an alternate-history 1920s period. It is a time of farming and war, broken hearts and rusted gears, innovation and valor. In Scythe, each player represents a fallen leader attempting to restore their honor and lead their faction to power in Eastern Europa. Players conquer territory, enlist new recruits, reap resources, gain villagers, build structures, and activate monstrous mechs.

This game is truly amazing. The experience is one you will want to keep coming back to, and the components add to this wonderful and attractive theme. Theme, story, design, replayability are all superb.

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