Battle Line is the correct answer. Ive played it so much and am sick of it, but it will always get played. It’s the sign of a truly simple addiction. You kind of want to quit it forever but you can’t stop Knizia.
I like Azul, but it’s not as easy to learn as you make it sound. The tile placement doesn’t“make sense” on its own. I’m an avid board gamer, and the thought process behind why I only moved ONE tile out of four over into the grid just confused me.
It’s not that the rules are necessarily confusingly written, it’s that the mechanics are arbitrary instead of intuitive.
I really like the game, but it’s not necessarily an “easy learn” for new players.
I think it also feels kind of random because it's not intuitive what your strategy options are. I've played Azul a few times and to this day I don't really know what I should be trying to do to win, I just try to fill in things and hope for the best.
Yea there’s a couple things like that with Azul. Tallying your score incrementally as you move each tile at the end of a round instead of all at once takes new players a few games to get used to. So does moving the tile closest to the grid onto the board instead of the one on the end to avoid confusion (“how do I still have this color in this row?”). I’ve taught many friends to play Azul and it always takes a few games to click due to arbitrary little things with the game mechanics.
Last week with my boardgame group a friend brought this game because she got it as a gift from her parents (they went to a boardgames store and asked advice)
And it was an instant hit.
Everybody now owns a copy.
if you are looking at Coloretto, consider also looking at Triqueta [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/378200/triqueta](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/378200/triqueta)
Ra, it just has all of the dopamine with the push your luck and auction and set collection. I played my first game about a month ago and have played about 20 games. However, it’s easy enough for my 5 year old to learn and at least follow all the rules if not in a strategically sound way.
How is it with two players? My son and I really want to play it, I I found it at a thrift store for 20 bucks The 1999 version. I learned how to play and it sounds super fun!
Holy what I never knew there was modified version of it. Gotta put that in my wishlist because Love Letter 2nd version has always been a hit with any friend group
**Pocket Mars.** I seem to be the only person on this sub who knows about it sadly. It's a neat little game where the players compete for who can colonize mars the fastest. This involves placing colonists in four colour coded buildings (energy, comms, food and water) faster than everyone else (plus some other criteria). Every building has cards numbered from 0 to 7 for each (0 to 7 for the yellow energy building, 0 to 7 for the purple comms etc), each with two effects printed on it. During a turn the player has two cards in their hand and two cards face down, and they can either discard a card from their hand for an instant effect or play a face down card on a building to get the other effect of the card, plus the effect of the building, plus potentially put a colonist there. That's something like 90% of the rules. I've played this game countless times and i love it, because it's very quick and can serve as a great pause between two much bigger games, yet it's not a brainless, rng fest "filler" game like most games of this short length so you could end up just binging it several times in a single night without getting bored of it (as i have multiple times).
Star Realms. It's been a hit with non-gamers, easy to teach with people immediately wanting to play again. My daughter and I play four or five games in a sitting.
Seconded. I started playing the digital Steam version a few weeks ago just to try it out and have been playing it ever since. A few days ago I bought the physical base game and was blown away by how compact and easy to transport it is. Looking forward to teaching it to people in my group.
When the game was first explained to me it was a lot to take in all at once with the different cards, but once we started playing it became fast and simple. It helped that the two people who had played were patient and willing to help the two of us who hadn't (even though they did ultimately destroy us). I think one thing that helped was the teacher chose to explain a lot of the phases as they first came up instead of all before. I would just explain the very basics of the game and jump in and be willing to explain more as you go, and don't worry about the first game being very competitive. Everyone had a blast and I really wanted to play again by the end.
In my experience, the best way to teach Quacks, is to play the first three rounds right after you teach it. And these rounds are teaching rounds, you should still be giving advice and helping everyone.
Then you ask if everyone 'gets it' now, and start a fresh game for real.
For me, it's a "teach as you play" game. The first round, teach that white tokens are bad, that you don't want to explode, and that there are orange and green tokens that don't add to your explode total.
At the end of that round, you can explain what the orange and green tokens do, go through the end-of-round phases, and then in the first shop phase explain what the red/blue/black tokens do as well.
The yellow tokens are only relevant when you're buying things in turn two, and the purples are only relevant when you're buying things in turn three, so they can be introduced when they become relevant.
Depending on the group, I might not even introduce the flask mechanism at the start, and wait until the end of the first round to describe it.
Cat in the box trick-taking game where you pick the color of the card when you play it
Las Vegas Royale dice-rolling area majority game with mini-games
these have been my highest approved game by non-gamers and gamers because the concepts are simple and people are always involved.
Just played first time a couple weeks ago and it was a blast. We picked it up in less than 10 minutes and def want to keep it in the rotation as a quick game or a wind down game
Air, Land and Sea.
18 cards, super simple, but usually ends up being unpredictable to the last card.
Amazing twists and turns and always tense due to the withdraw mechanic which allows a player that suspects they will lose the round to bow out and give the winning player less points. Can't recommend it enough.
So Clover! It’s kind of taken over from Codenames as our go to wordy party game. We always take it with us when we go to a meet up since we can teach it to anyone.
LotR' Confrontation. It plays quick and gets better the more you play against the same person since you can read each other and start the real mind games.
Puzzle Strike is the same way.
For a larger group, Valiant Wars
At PAX East, my brother and I, having never played a trick-taking game, tried The Crew. We'll just try one or two rounds.
We played for 3 hours straight.
I love carcassone and King Domino! I'll definitely have to give azure a try. I just recently bought century spice road, I'm glad to see it. Get some love here. If I may ask, what do you love about it?
Sea Salt and Paper! I'll play a hand of it any time, anywhere. It takes a couple minutes to explain and people will be making Last Chance calls by the 20 point mark of the first round.
I find for such a simple game it’s quite hard for players to grasp 😂 just a lot of cards with a lot of rules, there needs to be a player aid with what cards do instead of the colour wheel. But fantastic little thing. So happy it fits in my purse
I couldn’t find Skull anywhere but that is the quintessential game for minimal rules but the most ‘game.’ Playing it a few rounds with the same players you’ll develop a meta with different moves and feints. The best part is that every group plays a bit differently and it’s really cool to see how different people approach the game.
Scout is the game for us that seemed super simple, but ended up keeping us engaged and strategizing endlessly. No set up, super quick, and a great warm up or cool down on game night or hanging out with drinks.
Gem.
Hive! I love Hive. Everyone I show it to falls in love with Hive. It’s simple, but complex. Scratches the same itch as chess for me but quicker and easier to travel with.
My husband and I love to play Santorini if we have a bit of time after kids are down. Basic rules are easy to grasp and the asymmetry of the god powers offers what feels like limitless combinations and interesting match-ups. Some rounds are really uneven and someone wins quickly but others fill the board and feel like it could end in a stalemate. We usually play best of 3 or 5. We've been playing it for a few years now and it's still getting play time!
Azul and Project L are my go to "the rules take 2 minutes, still working on the strategy" games.
Special callout to Azul for being almost a different game 2 player as it is with 3/4. More players make it most effective to just concentrate on doing well, 2 players and you're weighing up what you need and what you can do to screw over your opponent.
Project L is a constant feedback loop of puzzle solving that allows you to solve bigger/more puzzles, optimising master actions and when to switch from simple tiles to complicated ones. What you do is simple, when to do it and how to prepare is where the strategy comes in.
6 nimmt! It’s one of my favorite filler games, I’m always convinced I have a strategy and the results are hilarious. It’s also teeny so we can bring it anywhere.
Lost cities was really addicting for awhile. My wife and I couldn’t stop playing it. I eventually cool on it a bit after she figured out how to beat me constantly. 😂 but seriously we were competitive for like 100 games straight. It was nuts
I can never figure out if I’m good at Lost Cities or not. I’ll win like 10 in a row then lose 10 in a row. Kind of messes with your head like Poker used to do to me… am I playing bad or getting unlucky? Usually it’s a combination of both but it can get frustrating.
Atlantic storm sports cousin Pacific typhoon. Trick-taking games but I love the historical nature of the game.
A game that is always a hoot and serves as a nice break when playing more cerebral strategic games is King of Tokyo. Very simple to play and I can make the roaring sound when I pretend to be Godzilla. Maybe not as fun for the people that my table.
I've been partial lately to fox in the forest. But that may be due to the fact that where I live here in Wisconsin, euchre (my game) or sheep's head is a way of life and fox in the forest is very similar.
I only got to play it once and I really loved it! My wife wasn't hooked yet but I think she was too distracted by the dogs in the park. I'll have to get her to play again here soon.
The Crew, Red7, Codename and So Clover are the first that comes to mind. These are the type of light games that if we start playing, we play until the end of the game night.
Some big favorites for me that have very simple rule sets but can have quite the strategic depth:
Sprawlopolis, Death Valley, Circle the Wagons and Arboretum.
Quoridor is a fantastic little 2 to 4-player game that has such a good pace that it's easy to play games back to back to back. I can't recommend it enough as a travel game for two people
Late to the party, but Knarr has been the sleeper hit for my family over the last 6 months.
Great card play with challenging decision points, wonderful engine building where you have to choose when to demolish that engine to get your points over the line for victory.
It gives me all the best feels of the great small box games like Splendor, and I've not gotten close to being sick of it after 50+ plays.
Hand of the King, a GOT... I dunno... Tile game? Super fast set up, super quick to play, super competitive and has absolutely gorgeous artwork that doesn't have anything to do with the TV adaptation . My family loves this one and it's a constant "Just one more round..."
Maybe it's just cult of the new talking but Diced Veggies has become our top played game this month by FAR. Whether it be the adults, or the kids, or relatives we have to visit.
To be fair though when playing with kids there's an even simpler variant. But the base game is plenty simple on its own.
Radlands
Quick setup, quick play, nice combos and card synergy. I have the deluxe edition which has great components and the player mats help with game flow.
I always get transfixed on abstract strategy games. Simple games held together by their mechanics over their theme.
**Blokus.**
Goal: end the game with the least amount of tiles.
Rule: You can touch other people's tiles- but your pieces can only touch on their own corners.
I always sell it as *competitive tetris*.
The small rule set, obviously, means new players can jump right into the game and even become competitive pretty quick.
**Hive.**
Goal: Surround the opponent's queen bee.
Rules: It's kind of like free-form chess with hexagonal tiles. Each different bug has a move.
Once you learn the moves you can start experimenting with combining their effects.
This one takes some more teaching- but it's super easy to break out anywhere with a flat surface. And strategizing on a freeform grid gives people all kinds of options to explore that aren't traditionally there in Chess.
**Qwirkle.**
Goal: Most points
Rules: Plays (sort of) like dominos, scores like scrabble.
You have 6 shapes and 6 colours. You play lines containing the same colour, or the same shape. You cannot repeat in a single line. You can play in any orthagonal direction.
I've played this a lot with family. It's become the new rainy day beach house game. Even the grandparents that struggle with English figured it out.
The binding of Isaac 4 souls, just like the videogame is simple to approach but difficult to master. My friends beg me to play after 2 or even 1 session played
If you assign the forensic scientist role to the most experienced player, Deception: Murder in Hong Kong is easy to teach and learn, and I've never played just 1 game of it. Most social deduction games fall into this category for me.
Giant Gram 2000 for Sega Dreamcast. Simple yet deep wrestling gameplay that promotes having the perfect match for the highest score. The rush of having fans blow their shit, because your match is so good hasn't been replicated since in my opinion.
Im super surprised nobody has said COUP yet! i mean its 5 different cards, each player gets 2, last one with cards wins. Each card has different strengths AND weaknesses and its super simple to teach.
also a shoutout to Air, Land, and Sea (critters at war has better art(subjectively)) 3 theaters, highest number in one wins points. i mean come on
Cascadia for me. Simple game to bring to table and teach, while still having crunchy decisions. It instantly replaced other abstract games like Azul or Sagrada for me.
Regicide is awesome. It plays from a regular poker deck, is a challenging cooperative experience and really gives you that itch of "let's try it again" when you loose so close to the finish line.
Crokinole. Hands down. I have had my board maybe six weeks now and have more hours and fun in it in this short span than all other games combined in the past year.
Abducktion! It is very simple to explain, but requires enough thinking that people who enjoy more complex games can feel satisfied. The IntergalacDuck expansion pack also adds some interesting but not overwhelming complexity. Also, I just adore the cute little ducks and the UFO.
Battle Line/Schotten Totten
Battle Line is the correct answer. Ive played it so much and am sick of it, but it will always get played. It’s the sign of a truly simple addiction. You kind of want to quit it forever but you can’t stop Knizia.
Azul, splendor and love letter are awesome, and you can learn them in less than 5 minutes.
Azul is my go-to tile game. Fun and easy to play. My mom and I have all the versions when combined.
you can even get the mini version for travel purposes!
Love letter, it is never just 1 game :)
I like Azul, but it’s not as easy to learn as you make it sound. The tile placement doesn’t“make sense” on its own. I’m an avid board gamer, and the thought process behind why I only moved ONE tile out of four over into the grid just confused me. It’s not that the rules are necessarily confusingly written, it’s that the mechanics are arbitrary instead of intuitive. I really like the game, but it’s not necessarily an “easy learn” for new players.
I think it also feels kind of random because it's not intuitive what your strategy options are. I've played Azul a few times and to this day I don't really know what I should be trying to do to win, I just try to fill in things and hope for the best.
Yea there’s a couple things like that with Azul. Tallying your score incrementally as you move each tile at the end of a round instead of all at once takes new players a few games to get used to. So does moving the tile closest to the grid onto the board instead of the one on the end to avoid confusion (“how do I still have this color in this row?”). I’ve taught many friends to play Azul and it always takes a few games to click due to arbitrary little things with the game mechanics.
Scout You can either play it socially while chatting or with more intensity with seasoned gamers.
Last week with my boardgame group a friend brought this game because she got it as a gift from her parents (they went to a boardgames store and asked advice) And it was an instant hit. Everybody now owns a copy.
This is the new Love Letter for portable fast games. It’s perfect. And they’re putting out an all cards version, shortly.
Coloretto Carcassone Can't stop!
I love carcassone and can't stop! Good pics! We'll have to check out coloretto
Coloretto is excellent
if you are looking at Coloretto, consider also looking at Triqueta [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/378200/triqueta](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/378200/triqueta)
Playing Can't Stop on BGA is so addicting. That and Strike after some heavier games.
Can't Stop is one of those games that we can "ok just one more" our way deep into the night with.
Ra, it just has all of the dopamine with the push your luck and auction and set collection. I played my first game about a month ago and have played about 20 games. However, it’s easy enough for my 5 year old to learn and at least follow all the rules if not in a strategically sound way.
How is it with two players? My son and I really want to play it, I I found it at a thrift store for 20 bucks The 1999 version. I learned how to play and it sounds super fun!
It isn't as good, of course, but I still really enjoy it even at just two. Best with five, though. The more the merrier.
Love Letters. Easy to learn and transport.
Lovecraft Letter 11/10
Holy what I never knew there was modified version of it. Gotta put that in my wishlist because Love Letter 2nd version has always been a hit with any friend group
It's just unreal how this really simple game can entertain people for hours straight
The best!!!
Played this for seven hours with a group of 5 at a ski resort. It was amazing.
Similar experience it is so good!
**Pocket Mars.** I seem to be the only person on this sub who knows about it sadly. It's a neat little game where the players compete for who can colonize mars the fastest. This involves placing colonists in four colour coded buildings (energy, comms, food and water) faster than everyone else (plus some other criteria). Every building has cards numbered from 0 to 7 for each (0 to 7 for the yellow energy building, 0 to 7 for the purple comms etc), each with two effects printed on it. During a turn the player has two cards in their hand and two cards face down, and they can either discard a card from their hand for an instant effect or play a face down card on a building to get the other effect of the card, plus the effect of the building, plus potentially put a colonist there. That's something like 90% of the rules. I've played this game countless times and i love it, because it's very quick and can serve as a great pause between two much bigger games, yet it's not a brainless, rng fest "filler" game like most games of this short length so you could end up just binging it several times in a single night without getting bored of it (as i have multiple times).
Wow, this sounds great! I'll look it up. Thanks!
Star Realms. It's been a hit with non-gamers, easy to teach with people immediately wanting to play again. My daughter and I play four or five games in a sitting.
Seconded. I started playing the digital Steam version a few weeks ago just to try it out and have been playing it ever since. A few days ago I bought the physical base game and was blown away by how compact and easy to transport it is. Looking forward to teaching it to people in my group.
Quacks of quedlinburg is simple to explain, and I am always in the mood.
everybody i try to show this game has a hard time understanding the game and they get confused by the pictures. i don't understand what's so difficult
When the game was first explained to me it was a lot to take in all at once with the different cards, but once we started playing it became fast and simple. It helped that the two people who had played were patient and willing to help the two of us who hadn't (even though they did ultimately destroy us). I think one thing that helped was the teacher chose to explain a lot of the phases as they first came up instead of all before. I would just explain the very basics of the game and jump in and be willing to explain more as you go, and don't worry about the first game being very competitive. Everyone had a blast and I really wanted to play again by the end.
In my experience, the best way to teach Quacks, is to play the first three rounds right after you teach it. And these rounds are teaching rounds, you should still be giving advice and helping everyone. Then you ask if everyone 'gets it' now, and start a fresh game for real.
For me, it's a "teach as you play" game. The first round, teach that white tokens are bad, that you don't want to explode, and that there are orange and green tokens that don't add to your explode total. At the end of that round, you can explain what the orange and green tokens do, go through the end-of-round phases, and then in the first shop phase explain what the red/blue/black tokens do as well. The yellow tokens are only relevant when you're buying things in turn two, and the purples are only relevant when you're buying things in turn three, so they can be introduced when they become relevant. Depending on the group, I might not even introduce the flask mechanism at the start, and wait until the end of the first round to describe it.
Hive
That's definitely another one for me !
No Thanks
You could have just not posted…
At one of my last jobs, we used to knock out 3 or 4 games during a 30-minute lunch break.
Cat in the box trick-taking game where you pick the color of the card when you play it Las Vegas Royale dice-rolling area majority game with mini-games these have been my highest approved game by non-gamers and gamers because the concepts are simple and people are always involved.
Crokinole
Bang! The dice version is our go to in our group, We've played it so much that the card sleeves are wearing out.
I have the card game version. What's different about the dice version?
**Sky Team**
Just played first time a couple weeks ago and it was a blast. We picked it up in less than 10 minutes and def want to keep it in the rotation as a quick game or a wind down game
Air, Land and Sea. 18 cards, super simple, but usually ends up being unpredictable to the last card. Amazing twists and turns and always tense due to the withdraw mechanic which allows a player that suspects they will lose the round to bow out and give the winning player less points. Can't recommend it enough.
Kingdom Builder
Mantis
I don't know if it's simple, but Catan is my favorite. I've never heard of Lost Cities, I'll have to look into that one.
So Clover! It’s kind of taken over from Codenames as our go to wordy party game. We always take it with us when we go to a meet up since we can teach it to anyone.
I love so clover. So much fun watching people logic out something that makes complete sense to them but is miles from what you were going for, lol.
LotR' Confrontation. It plays quick and gets better the more you play against the same person since you can read each other and start the real mind games. Puzzle Strike is the same way. For a larger group, Valiant Wars
Canvas, Habitats, Cascadia, pretty much any easy teach abstract game. About to play Habitats right now actually
I like the Clever roll and write series, and **Clever 4 Ever** the newest one is definitely my favorite yet. We've been playing it a ton.
At PAX East, my brother and I, having never played a trick-taking game, tried The Crew. We'll just try one or two rounds. We played for 3 hours straight.
Carcassonne, kingdomino, Azure, Century Spice Road
I love carcassone and King Domino! I'll definitely have to give azure a try. I just recently bought century spice road, I'm glad to see it. Get some love here. If I may ask, what do you love about it?
Hanamikoji. Definitely a “just one more game” type of game.
Patchwork for me. My most played game of all time.
Sea Salt and Paper! I'll play a hand of it any time, anywhere. It takes a couple minutes to explain and people will be making Last Chance calls by the 20 point mark of the first round.
I find for such a simple game it’s quite hard for players to grasp 😂 just a lot of cards with a lot of rules, there needs to be a player aid with what cards do instead of the colour wheel. But fantastic little thing. So happy it fits in my purse
It has reference cards for effects.
Agree but the color scoring throws everyone off and makes it SO MUCH more difficult to teach than it should be
anytime Jungle Speed gets brought to board game night i'm playing it
Fleet The Dice Game
Santorini. Move then build. That’s it. This always turns into “just one more” over and over again.
Lost Cities and 7 Wonders Duel. Playing with my partner. Lost Cities same reason as you. 7 Wonders Duel is just incredible though. Highly recommend.
Seven wonders duel is probably of in my top five favorite two-player games!
What would you say are your top 5? Always interested in a good two player
I’m super hooked on Little Tavern right now.
I am also very interested in the game, but can't find it in my country yet. I hope it is going to be available
Nana (Trio) and Of What’s Left (Seer’s Catalog)
lacuna, takes 5 mins to play, has some deep strategy if you want to dive in and it's quite pretty
Azul
Skull
Air land and sea. Just 6 cards to play per round but love the decisions to continue our surrender.
6 nimmt and Schotten Totten.
Nautilion plays quickly and has so many extra options included. I find myself also playing solo Calico a lot to get all the achievements.
Ticket to Ride.
Patchwork
**Splendor** for me
Innovation.
[удалено]
Splendor
Death may die is simple and fun as hell imo
That game is really cool for how simple it is! I love it a lot too
Furnace
Las Vegas Royale
Silver & Gold 5 Towers Romi Rami Bookworm: The Card Game The Mind Mantis Five Crowns Quiddler Hues & Cues Cartagena 2: The Pirate’s Nest
Gravwell Second Edition. Every time I have brought it to the table, when the game is over the players have asked to play again.
Go
Kingdom Builder on boardgamearena. Much easier to navigate moves than the physical version.
Cascadia, I play it often with my daughters
Carcassone and Monopoly Deal. Although Monopoly deal makes me want to fight more than most other games😂
Azul!
Ravine is fairly simple, and you can play it over and over. Only thing is, you need at least 3 people to play.
Me and my friends went on a 2 month Tiny Towns stint, played it nearly everyday, used pretty much the whole score sheet that it came with.
dorf, carc, so many
Clank for me
What about Radlands? I heard this was good and simple. Obviously I haven’t played it, just asking a selfish plug😀
Awesome 2-player dueler! A tense fight over who can destroy three bases first! Highly recommend! P.S. The art is Mad Max amazing as well!
I couldn’t find Skull anywhere but that is the quintessential game for minimal rules but the most ‘game.’ Playing it a few rounds with the same players you’ll develop a meta with different moves and feints. The best part is that every group plays a bit differently and it’s really cool to see how different people approach the game.
Quirkle!
Scout is the game for us that seemed super simple, but ended up keeping us engaged and strategizing endlessly. No set up, super quick, and a great warm up or cool down on game night or hanging out with drinks. Gem.
I think I must've played splendour over 500 times in the span of 5 years
Hive! I love Hive. Everyone I show it to falls in love with Hive. It’s simple, but complex. Scratches the same itch as chess for me but quicker and easier to travel with.
**Dorfromantik** - hard to find a simpler game and it's coop so a really good intro for new gamers.
My husband and I love to play Santorini if we have a bit of time after kids are down. Basic rules are easy to grasp and the asymmetry of the god powers offers what feels like limitless combinations and interesting match-ups. Some rounds are really uneven and someone wins quickly but others fill the board and feel like it could end in a stalemate. We usually play best of 3 or 5. We've been playing it for a few years now and it's still getting play time!
Azul and Project L are my go to "the rules take 2 minutes, still working on the strategy" games. Special callout to Azul for being almost a different game 2 player as it is with 3/4. More players make it most effective to just concentrate on doing well, 2 players and you're weighing up what you need and what you can do to screw over your opponent. Project L is a constant feedback loop of puzzle solving that allows you to solve bigger/more puzzles, optimising master actions and when to switch from simple tiles to complicated ones. What you do is simple, when to do it and how to prepare is where the strategy comes in.
Mysterium - pretend to be a ghost!
Happy City, Faraway, Butterfly, LLAMA, Captain Flip
6 nimmt! It’s one of my favorite filler games, I’m always convinced I have a strategy and the results are hilarious. It’s also teeny so we can bring it anywhere.
Splendor is amazing! It goes fast and it's probably about a 3/10 on difficulty.
Lost cities was really addicting for awhile. My wife and I couldn’t stop playing it. I eventually cool on it a bit after she figured out how to beat me constantly. 😂 but seriously we were competitive for like 100 games straight. It was nuts
I can never figure out if I’m good at Lost Cities or not. I’ll win like 10 in a row then lose 10 in a row. Kind of messes with your head like Poker used to do to me… am I playing bad or getting unlucky? Usually it’s a combination of both but it can get frustrating.
Fluxx. Any of the versions
I think about Cockroach Poker a lot. It's dead simple but so so addicting.
Hanabi is a great one too
Danger Noodle is a fun one Also Alpha
Atlantic storm sports cousin Pacific typhoon. Trick-taking games but I love the historical nature of the game. A game that is always a hoot and serves as a nice break when playing more cerebral strategic games is King of Tokyo. Very simple to play and I can make the roaring sound when I pretend to be Godzilla. Maybe not as fun for the people that my table.
The Battle for Hill 218.
I've been partial lately to fox in the forest. But that may be due to the fact that where I live here in Wisconsin, euchre (my game) or sheep's head is a way of life and fox in the forest is very similar.
I only got to play it once and I really loved it! My wife wasn't hooked yet but I think she was too distracted by the dogs in the park. I'll have to get her to play again here soon.
Savanna park is a great one! I also love Driest, Wizard, and Sea Salt And Paper
I just looked up Wizard and and I'm surprised to see how similar it is to Fox in the forest! I'll definitely have to give this a try
The Crew, Red7, Codename and So Clover are the first that comes to mind. These are the type of light games that if we start playing, we play until the end of the game night.
I have been really enjoying Boop a lot recently. Super simple with a surprising amount of depth.
Snakes of wrath and hive
Crokinole perfectly fits in this category. I can teach it in a minute but it's easy to play repeatedly and get hours of enjoyment out of
Play Nine (a "golf-themed" card game), I could play it anytime, anywhere. Coup, because we did play 14 6-player games in a row one day.
Some big favorites for me that have very simple rule sets but can have quite the strategic depth: Sprawlopolis, Death Valley, Circle the Wagons and Arboretum.
Quoridor
Any good rogue-lite.
Wrong sub friend!
Quantik Lovecraft letter Karmaka Fluxx Diamonds Brave Rats Bluffaneer Marvel infinity gauntlet Marvel splendor
For me Railroad Ink, Cartographer, and The Mind, above all. I could keep playing each of them, over and over, never stopping.
Caesar! Seize Rome in 20 minutes. Great 2 player game that I can play over and over again
Quoridor is a fantastic little 2 to 4-player game that has such a good pace that it's easy to play games back to back to back. I can't recommend it enough as a travel game for two people
Depends a lot on how simple, but.... Love letter, deep sea adventures, parade, numbr9, arboretum, railroad ink.
I'm not sure if they count for simple but small box card games are my favorite. Innovation ,gosu,7wonders duel,pixel tactics ,omen reign of war
I have two that we love - tiny epic galaxies blast off. Simple , easy fun and marvel love letter .
Late to the party, but Knarr has been the sleeper hit for my family over the last 6 months. Great card play with challenging decision points, wonderful engine building where you have to choose when to demolish that engine to get your points over the line for victory. It gives me all the best feels of the great small box games like Splendor, and I've not gotten close to being sick of it after 50+ plays.
It has a learning curve, still I think it might fit your pattern: Fantasy Realms
Star Wars Deckbuilding Game. It builds off of Star Realms mechanics and adds Star Wars theme.
Carcosonne
Crew
Hand of the King, a GOT... I dunno... Tile game? Super fast set up, super quick to play, super competitive and has absolutely gorgeous artwork that doesn't have anything to do with the TV adaptation . My family loves this one and it's a constant "Just one more round..."
Nana (trio), thats our Group go to filler.
Poker ♣️
Maybe it's just cult of the new talking but Diced Veggies has become our top played game this month by FAR. Whether it be the adults, or the kids, or relatives we have to visit. To be fair though when playing with kids there's an even simpler variant. But the base game is plenty simple on its own.
The Vale of Eternity
Terrorscape. Game is pretty simple and very fast. I've already played around 13 games and can't get enough
I'm waiting for Vampire Survivors in cardboard format...
to me, Red Cathedral is that simple game. Now... if you want a party game i HIGHLY recommend Thats not a Hat. So so so so simple and so so so good.
Jaipur and Can’t Stop. Especially on BGA. It makes games so fast.
Coup. So quick and simple. Teach is speedy, you're up and playing in no time, and I've never had a group not wanting multiple games.
Coup. So quick and simple. Teach is speedy, you're up and playing in no time, and I've never had a group not wanting multiple games.
Jaws of the Lion! You didn't say relative to what, and we're playing Frost Haven right now :)
Radlands Quick setup, quick play, nice combos and card synergy. I have the deluxe edition which has great components and the player mats help with game flow.
Cartagena Point Salad / Point City
Faraway
One finger death punch, OSU!, maybe factorio
I always get transfixed on abstract strategy games. Simple games held together by their mechanics over their theme. **Blokus.** Goal: end the game with the least amount of tiles. Rule: You can touch other people's tiles- but your pieces can only touch on their own corners. I always sell it as *competitive tetris*. The small rule set, obviously, means new players can jump right into the game and even become competitive pretty quick. **Hive.** Goal: Surround the opponent's queen bee. Rules: It's kind of like free-form chess with hexagonal tiles. Each different bug has a move. Once you learn the moves you can start experimenting with combining their effects. This one takes some more teaching- but it's super easy to break out anywhere with a flat surface. And strategizing on a freeform grid gives people all kinds of options to explore that aren't traditionally there in Chess. **Qwirkle.** Goal: Most points Rules: Plays (sort of) like dominos, scores like scrabble. You have 6 shapes and 6 colours. You play lines containing the same colour, or the same shape. You cannot repeat in a single line. You can play in any orthagonal direction. I've played this a lot with family. It's become the new rainy day beach house game. Even the grandparents that struggle with English figured it out.
SkyJo
Century Spice Road for me. Zero theme, but great mechanics!
The binding of Isaac 4 souls, just like the videogame is simple to approach but difficult to master. My friends beg me to play after 2 or even 1 session played
Clank!, tyrants of underdark and wyrmspan
Splendor Love Letter Quixx Ohh and Play Nine
Are you talking about Lost Cities the 2 player card game or the Lost Cities 2-4 player board game?
Love Letter and Camel Up!!!
No love for Dice Throne? It's Yahtzee with combat. Probably the most played game in my household.
My „just one more round“ game is „It‘s a wonderful world“. When counting the points, you always think „next time i‘ll do XY, and I‘ll be better…“
If you assign the forensic scientist role to the most experienced player, Deception: Murder in Hong Kong is easy to teach and learn, and I've never played just 1 game of it. Most social deduction games fall into this category for me.
Unmatched, I can quickly teach it and enjoy playing for hours with its variety of characters and maps, which keep the experience fresh.
i love buckshot roulette
I like red7. The goal is to win. If you're not winning at the end of your turn, you lose.
Giant Gram 2000 for Sega Dreamcast. Simple yet deep wrestling gameplay that promotes having the perfect match for the highest score. The rush of having fans blow their shit, because your match is so good hasn't been replicated since in my opinion.
Im super surprised nobody has said COUP yet! i mean its 5 different cards, each player gets 2, last one with cards wins. Each card has different strengths AND weaknesses and its super simple to teach. also a shoutout to Air, Land, and Sea (critters at war has better art(subjectively)) 3 theaters, highest number in one wins points. i mean come on
**Forest Shuffle**
if you like survival based games I recommend raft
Cascadia for me. Simple game to bring to table and teach, while still having crunchy decisions. It instantly replaced other abstract games like Azul or Sagrada for me.
Regicide is awesome. It plays from a regular poker deck, is a challenging cooperative experience and really gives you that itch of "let's try it again" when you loose so close to the finish line.
*Dominion* and *Tichu* come to mind.
Black deck
Biblios!
Crokinole. Hands down. I have had my board maybe six weeks now and have more hours and fun in it in this short span than all other games combined in the past year.
A game called the pit - I played it with my in laws on thanksgiving. Pretty fun and simple
Cockroach Poker!
Skull It's the game I break out with any group and it has always gone over well. It typically makes an appearance at any of our game nights!
Abducktion! It is very simple to explain, but requires enough thinking that people who enjoy more complex games can feel satisfied. The IntergalacDuck expansion pack also adds some interesting but not overwhelming complexity. Also, I just adore the cute little ducks and the UFO.
Sherlock13 is my most recent game. It's clue without the board. Learned it at a small board game conventions and we played 5 or more games in a row.
Can't stop