Greetings Cardboardians!
My name is Ryan, Aka the Clever Rhino (I picked it myself! :D). I get to be one of the awesome voices of this here blog, as well as one of the friendly faces you’ll see behind the counter at the café.
We’ve seen so many wonderful new faces coming in and they all seem to have a common question – “What games would you recommend??” And that’s exactly what I’m here to answer!
So, first off, there’s like a million board games. There’s a lot. And board games are like books – just because I like it, doesn’t mean you will. But, also like books, everyone can find something they love. For this post in particular, I wanna focus on great starter games that *I* love to get people playing together, and then one that’s for the veterans out there.
Let’s talk games!
5-Minute Dungeon
5-Minute Dungeon is a fast-paced game of color and symbol matching, making it a great starter game. I bet you can’t guess how long it takes!
Players work together to match all of the symbols on a card in order to defeat it, trying to make it to the boss at the end in 5 minutes. There are 5 bosses, each increasing in difficulty and expansion sets to add new characters to choose.
The complexity is low and the set up is quick. There’s also the 5-Minute Marvel edition for those who wanna feel super!
Dungeon Mayhem
Keeping with the quick and quirky, Dungeon Mayhem is a Battle Royale card game! Everyone for themselves and battle to the death! The mechanics are very simple and easy to pick up, each character has their own flavor, the comic art style is hilarious, and honestly, attacking people is really fun! Dungeon Mayhem has 2 expansions so far, adding more quirky characters and a trove of monsters that are available to play as also.
Gloomhaven
Lastly, I’ll mention my current favorite game: Gloomhaven! Gloomhaven is definitely on the advanced end of the spectrum so if you’re still new to the scene, this is one of the big bad boys on the block! Gloomhaven is played with minifigures on a hexagonal based terrain system – this just means you use the hexes to determine how far away stuff is and each terrain piece can be used to build scenarios outlined in the rules. Each character has a unique feel and their own unique set of cards. Players choose their actions based on the cards and battle any of over 20 different enemies. I came late to the Gloomhaven scene as it had already built a huge following. But now, I’m a tried and true Gloomer (Havener?) and definitely recommend this to people looking for a challenge!
The Wrap Up
These recommendations definitely have a fantasy theme. Adventurers enter scary dungeons and battle monsters for glory and riches OR sometimes they turn on each other!
If fantasy and adventure doesn’t scratch your itch, I’d also recommend Kitchen Rush. I just picked up this game recently and my wife and I love it!
I hope you enjoyed my recommendations. I’m excited to further engage with our community.
If you need more recommendations, or just want other people to discuss gaming of any kind with, check out our community Discord or check out our Game Recommendation section.
Game on!
