I've been attending my local area Android Netrunner league where I've met several individuals around my age. Some of us are at various points in our life: dating our significant other, being engaged (me!), married without children, and married with children. We're all gaming men, but have trouble finding games that are simple enough to not scare off non-gamers, yet complex enough to keep us interested. I have personally been asked this question dozens of times, but now I think I'm just going to write a blog post for all to enjoy. Maybe someone else out there will also find this useful.
So, I have come up with a list of games that I think would be great for getting people started. This is a series of games that are all easily accessible, and hopefully will get people comfortable with the idea of playing games, so that it can pave the way for more advanced games.
Let's begin with a list of awesome 2-player games:
- Four in a Square
- Gobblet
- Gyges
- Inside (Gigamic)
- Lost Cities
- Pentago
- Pente
- Quarto
- Quorridor
First let me mention that a large number of these games are abstract games. I consider a bunch of these to be variations of "tic tac toe on crack". Four in a Square, Gobblet, Pentago, Pente, and Quarto are all games that I consider to be in this category. Quoridor, Inside, and Gyges are the most unique ones in the list. All simple enough to be learned, but Lost Cities is more involved. It's simple arithmetic scoring, but the game play has an element of statistical risk.
Tabletop games that support more than two players, but plays well with two players:
- Blokus
- Carcassone
- Forbidden Island
- Forbidden Desert
Carcassone is a tile-laying, point-gaining game that breeds many strategic possibilities, but is still simple enough for even the casual non-gamer to understand. Blokus a game that is basically like golf: lowest score wins. It is really a four player game of "get rid of all your tetris-like pieces", but plays two people just fine when each person plays as two colors each.
Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert are both cooperative games, so if you get some people who refuse to play against you because you are too competitive, these provide an alternative to allow them to play with you against the game (I recommend these because they are simpler than Pandemic, which is also another great cooperative game). Unlike my recent pain-staking cooperative experience with Hanabi, these games are quite fun most of the time.
Other casual multi-player games to start people off:
- Dixit
- Kingsburg
- Settlers of Catan
- Survive: Escape from Atlantis
- Ticket to Ride
Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride are already well known Euro-games that are easy to learn and play. Getting ten points with settlements, cities, and cards is the object of Settlers, while getting the most points with trains routes is the object of Ticket to Ride. Kingsburg is a dice rolling "worker placement" game in which you try and get the most points by swaying advisors, getting resources, building buildings, and defending against winter monsters. Survive is an interesting game where islanders try and leave an island that is slowly sinking into an ocean, where they must get to safety... but only after they survive the onslaught of sharks, whales, and sea serpents. Dixit is a refreshing game somewhat similar to Apples to Apples or Cards Against Humanity, but the cards don't have words, they have pictures. The active player isn't a judge- they are tasked with coming up with a clue to mask their card that they threw in, but not from everyone.
I own and play all of these games, depending on the crowd I have over and the mood I want to set, we choose different games to play. We've gotten to the point where many of my friends enjoy playing games, and even ask to play specific ones!
Hope this helps!
