‍

My Resume

Anyone who knows me knows I love games. Gaming is a huge part of my life, for multiple different reasons.

One is that I play for my own enjoyment. I am a born collector – I own 1,766 books (yes I have them all in a neatly organized spreadsheet sortable by author, world, genre, and target audience), and hundreds of games on quite a few different systems.

Because of this aspect of my personality, I often embrace my hobbies in a massive way, experiencing and exploring as much of them as I can.

I love spending time playing single-player video games, and always have at least ten “active” games that I am playing, with one or two as my primary focuses (I am deep into my Omega Ruby Nuzlock right now, and playing No Man’s Sky on the side).

However, the beauty of gaming is that it is not limited to one player – there are many games that are meant to be played with two or more participants. And, in my experience, one of the best ways to get to know someone is to sit down and play a game with them.

I have deeply embraced video games in my adulthood, but I was not raised on them. My only consoles when I was a kid were a PS1 (I grew up in PS2 era, so even when I was younger it was an older console, though I spent hours playing those games and loved them just as much as I would have loved a later console), a Gameboy Color (a gift from my cousin that came with Pokémon Blue and Pokémon Silver, my first taste of handheld gaming), and a Nintendo DS (and 3DS later in life).

When we were older, my family bought a Wii for family gaming, but my love of games did not start with a console, it started with a table, a game board, and my family.

We were not a typical gaming family, however. While other kids were playing Monopoly and Chutes and Ladders, I was playing Stratego, Forbidden Bridge, Heroscape, and Star Wars: Queen’s Gambit.

I grew up deep within the gaming iceberg, and as I got older and realized that other kids had never experienced games like these, I shared the world of gaming with my friends, and spent many hours introducing other people to the games I loved. Even now, I have a bag full of games in front of me from my last visit to a friend’s house – I am perpetually packing more games than I will play (a habit picked up from my father) so that we are sure to have a game that fits the vibe of the hangout. 

The Tip of the Iceberg

Having someone in your life who is into board games is an excellent way to learn the types of games you’ll enjoy, and to experience some new games you might never have heard of.

But without a guide, the world of tabletop gaming can seem very overwhelming. Well, I can’t show up at your house with a bag of games and introduce you to each of them in person, but I can give you some guidance here!

Any of these games look familiar? I would assume that you’ve heard of at least a few of them.

These are games from the top of the gaming iceberg, and this is one of the reasons that some adults think of tabletop gaming as something they do more with kids, and less with one another.

I am not here to tell you which of these games I think are overrated or underrated, but to tell you that for each of these, there are games that might play with slight familiarity, but with more depth, content, and variety.

Some of these games here are fantastic, solid gaming experiences, but if you enjoy them, there are probably other games you would like that you may not have heard of before! These games rest at the tip of the iceberg. This is your classic Clue, Monopoly, Life, Yahtzee, etc. The games that everyone knows.

Some are satisfied with these games, but there are many who want to go deeper into the world of gaming, but are not sure how to get there.

Types of Games – A Guide (Part One)

In order to more successfully take the dive into the world of gaming, you should be familiar with the different types of games that exist. The categories I am presenting to you are going to be very general, and as with any art form, there are plenty of games that intentionally blur the lines between these categories to create their own genre.

There are also plenty of sub-categories, and overlapping games between these three categories (and I will likely talk about some of them in the future!). 

For each game category, I will be giving you examples of Mainstream Games (the games that you might have heard of – many people who own board games have at least one of these on their shelves), Gateway Games (these are games that are at water level of the iceberg – they are more mainstream than the games deeper within the iceberg, but not everyone has heard of them, and are great for helping you decide whether or not this type of game is for you), and Iceberg Games (this is a game within the iceberg that many people have not heard of unless they have quite a bit of experience playing games, but that I very much enjoy).

NOTE: For the sake of this article, I will be using tabletop to refer to board games and card games. I will not be discussing tabletop roleplaying games such as Dungeons and Dragons, as they are their own beast with their own iceberg! Though they are also a lot of fun, they are not the focus of this article.

The Party Game

Out of all the game types on this list, party games are the most accessible (easy to learn and play). You generally need four or more players to dive into a party game, though some of them can be played with fewer and some are much more fun at higher numbers.

There are a multitude of different styles of party games, and they can vary from games that require you to give clues about a word to games where the players try to draw something that fits a category. 

Mainstream Game

Taboo

‍

Taboo: You might have heard of Taboo before, but if you haven’t, it is an excellent party game often played with four or more people.

The jist of it is simple – there are two teams, and there is one ”giver” (someone giving clues), and the rest of the players are “guessers” (people guessing the answer).

The giver is provided with a word, such as “cheese”. They then are provided with a list of words they cannot say. On this card, there might be words such as “cheddar”, “pizza”, “grilled”, “American”, etc.

Without saying any of the words on the card, the giver tries to get their teammates to correctly guess the word on the card. The team receives a point for each successful guess.

‍Gateway Games ‍

1. Banangrams

‍

Bananagrams is for the word-loving Scrabble-playing person in your life. The game’s structure is very simple – use the tiles in front of you to create a crossword.

When someone successfully finishes their crossword, each player receives another letter. When all the letters run out, the first person to successfully complete a crossword full of Scrabble-legal words wins!

‍2. Catchphrase

‍

Depending on who you are, Catchphrase could be considered mainstream or an iceberg game. I know many families who have Catchphrase and play it all the time, and families who play games and have never heard of it, which is why I chose to include it in the gateway section. Catchphrase is Hot Potato – with a catch.

Similarly to Taboo, the game uses a giver/guesser team structure. You sit with teammates alternating with foes, and on your turn a word will show up on the ticking timebomb that is the Catchphrase apparatus. Frantically, you give clues to try and get your teammates to guess the word on your screen while the game continues to tick.

When you succeed, you pass the device to the next player, and they take a turn doing the same thing. The round ends when the timer sounds, and the team opposite of whoever is holding the device gets a point.

The mechanics are simple, but the game is quite a bit of fun!

‍Iceberg Games

1. Just One

‍

Just One became a family favorite after just a few plays. The game is simple, but runs off a newly popular gaming style: co-op.

Instead of divvying into teams and competing, you are working together to try and score as high as you can.

In this, one person is the guesser, and everyone else is giving clues. Your goal: come up with a clue that will help the guesser, but won’t match with your teammates.

After everyone has put a word on their personal whiteboard, the guesser closes his eyes, and the teammates compare. Any matched words are eliminated and cannot be used, and then the guesser opens their eyes and tries to figure out the word using the clues available to them.

We have had hours of fun out of this game, and have played it more times than I can count!

2. Wavelength

‍

Wavelength is a relatively new game to me, but it has become one of my favorite party games. There are two ways to play – co-op or teams (I prefer the co-op variant, but both ways to play are great).

In this game, the giver is provided a spectrum. This could be as simple as “Smells Good//Smells Bad” or as complex as “Movie Godzilla Would Ruin//Movie Godzilla Would Improve”.

As you can see on the image, they are then given a mark on that spectrum, and they have to come up with a clue that will allow their teammates to accurately guess where on the wavelength that clue falls.

The white space with the 2/3/4/3/2 actually is able to spin, randomizing where on the spectrum the goal will be, and the green handle closes the screen so that the giver doesn’t see the goal until they’ve spun the device, and the guessers cannot see the goal. They guess using the red dial in the middle, and they try to place it as close to the four as possible using only the clue to guide them.

This is an excellent game with a bit of Codenames flare (another fantastic gateway party game).

‍

Jackbox Games

That rounds up Part 1 of this tabletop guide! I would be remiss, however, if during a discussion of party games, I did not mention a recent(ish) development in the world of gaming – Jackbox.

Jackbox is a company that spearheaded a new type of party game – one where you gather around the television or computer screen and play interactive games with friends using your phones (which interface with the Jackbox program).

There are 8 (soon to be 9) Jackbox Party Packs, each one including 5 games. The 40 games within these packs range from “just okay” to “incredible”, and there’s something in them for everyone!

‍

These range from trivia games to an adaptation of the popular game Balderdash (where you make up definitions for weird words that actually exist, and guess what the real definition is amongst the imposters) called Fibbage to the all-popular Quiplash, where you are simply trying to make the funniest answer to a prompt, and your peers vote on whose answer is the best!

These party packs are worth trying and diving into, and since Jackbox has been around for a while, there are quite a few games with unique mechanics, all of them playing off the basic concept of using your phone to interface with the game.

This might not be a tabletop game, but the experience of playing a Jackbox game is comparable to the experience of sitting around the table playing a physical party game, because it fosters the same sense of community – like many party games, it is a great way to simply spend time laughing and hanging out with the people in your life.

The Jackbox Party Packs are available for PC/Mac, Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo Switch (where I own all of them because of the portability and quick access to the television), and mobile.

‍

So that’s all for this tabletop gaming roundup – stay tuned for Part 2, where I’ll be talking about games that are more lighthearted fun, and diving into some of my favorite strategy games!

If you love playing party games, drop your favorite to us on twitter – game recommendations are always worth giving.

You never know when you might have shown someone their new favorite game!