Finding the right gift for the gamer in your life can be daunting. There’s over 100,000 unique board game items, so we’ve curated a list of our go-to recommendations for different types of board game fans. Consider this list to be your industrial strength neodymium magnet, because it’ll pull a needle out of the haystack in no time flat!
Without further ado, here’s our top recommendations for Games to Gift!
Kids Games (6 to 12) — boop the Halls! and Sushi Go. boop the Halls! is the followup to the popular boop – place your cats, and boop! each other out of the tree! Sushi Go is a pick-and-pass game with a delightful art style where you’re hopefully not out-picked or out-witted by the rest of the table.
Teen Games — MicroMacro and 500 Pound Gorilla MicroMacro is Where’s Waldo meets Columbo. You’ll solve various tiny crimes in a city by following tiny people through their tiny lives. Everyone takes turns saying TACO CAT GOAT CHEESE PIZZA as they place a card on the table. Once the card played matches the word spoken, players race against each other to SLAP the pile in the middle! The last one to slap gets the stack.
Party Games —Blood on the Clocktower is a bluffing game enjoyed by 5 to 20 players on opposing teams of Good and Evil and overseen by a Storyteller player who conducts the action and makes crucial decisions. Hues and Cues. is super easy to pick up, and will have you reinterpreting colors in ways you never quite expected.
2 Player Games — Hive, Patchwork, and Fox in the Forest. 3 easy to learn games with strategy that runs deep. For more on all 3 of these, check out a more in–depth article here.
Light Games — Codenames and Dixit. Both of these games involve one player giving clues that are then interpreted by another. Codenames is all about language, whereas Dixit is deeply entrenched in images and art.
Kids Games (under 6) — Rhino Hero and Unicorn Glitterluck. Both great games to get the young ones used to how board games play out. Rhino Hero is my personal favorite out of the two, you get to stack cards into a big tower.
Best solitaire game: Playing on a famous horror movie trope, Final Girl is a solitaire-only game that puts the player in the shoes of a female protagonist who must kill the slasher if she wants to survive.
Euro Games — 7 Wonders and Monkey Palace. 7 Wonders is about the building of human civilization through various means, and Monkey Palace is a LEGO board game where you compete against each other while you help the monkey rebuild the LEGO® Monkey Palace.
Deck Builder — Dominion and Clank! These are two staples of deckbuilding. Dominion is many players’ first experience with a deck building game, and for good reason: it’s reliable and lovable. Clank takes the deck building concept and puts it into a memorable action-adventure dungeon delving experience.
Worker Placement — Apiary and Everdell. Everdell is a beautiful looking, and multi-award winning game about animal-folk trying their best to thrive in the woodland. Apiary is a new game to the shelf about sentient bee-people furthering their goals in space. With over 20 factions to play as, I think Apiary may become a classic in the coming years.
Co-operative — Pandemic and the Exit/Unlock games. In Pandemic, the table works together to stop the spread of a disease spreading worldwide, and hopefully develop a cure for it. Exit and Unlock games are often called an escape room in a box, and they’ve all got unique adventures to go on and mysteries to be solved.
Strategy — Root and Wingspan. Root is a favorite around here, and it’s clear why. Each of the factions plays in unique ways, the art is uniquely charming, and the table politics are off-the-charts fun. In Wingspan are bird enthusiasts—researchers, bird watchers, ornithologists, and collectors—seeking to discover and attract the best birds to your network of wildlife preserves.
Games for the elderly — Tsuro and Five Crowns. Tsuro is a great pick for everyone, but it’s an especially great pick for older players since the game can easily be learned, and the pieces are legible and tactile. Five Crowns is a rummy-style card game that’s great for card game fans who want to shake it up a little.
D&D/Roleplaying Fans — There is a new revision of the Player’s Handbook and the Dungeon Master’s Guide
DICE!!! For the RPG fans it’s all about the dice. We have many many sets ranging from Chessex plastic sets to dice cut from actual gemstone, but the Pound ‘o’ Dice is perfect for extreme dice enthusiasts.
Warhammer Fans — The new edition of Middle Earth Strategy Battles looks incredibles and preorders arrive right before Christmas. Look no further.
Magic Fans — Magic Foundations has been one of the best received sets in years, covering years of Magic history with 50% new cards and mechanics.
Puzzle Fans — Check out the new series of Shashibo. One of the best-selling puzzle toys of all time, Shashibo has lots of new patterns and a coop and competitive mode.
This list is a solid survey of gifts for most tabletop gamers, but if you still feel like there’s not quite the right fit for someone on your list, drop in any time and we’ll be happy to make a recommendation!
