Board game who is it

Artipia Games. Artistic Justice Games. Asmadi Games. Aspen Entertainment. Atheris Games. Atlas Games. Australian Design Group. Avalanche Press.

Avalon Hill. Aviary Games. Awesome Games. Baba Geek Games. Baby Fanatic. Baby Shark. Back to the Future. Backspindle Games. Badger's Nest. Baksha Games. Be Good Company. Bed Beard Games. Bellwether Games. Best Paper Greetings. Bezier Games. Big G Creative. Big Potato. Black Forest. Black Locust Games. Black Mirror. Blue Cocker. Blue Orange. Blue Panda. Blue Panther. Blue Star Press. Board to Death Games. Bobby Fischer.

Bomba Games. Break From Reality Games. Breaking Games. Bright Creations. Brotherwise Games. Buffalo Games. Bully Pulpit Games. Burning Games. Burnt Island Games. Candy Land. Capsicum Games. Capstone Games. Cards Against Humanity. Carson Dellosa. Catalyst Game Labs. Catan Studio. Catch Phrase. Cephalofair Games. CGC Games. Chaos Publishing. Cheapass Games. Chicago Blackhawks. Chip Theory Games. Chronicle Books. City of Games. CJ Calvert Designs. Clash of Arms Games. Clay Crucible Games.

Clever Mojo Games. Closet Nerd Games. Cobblestone Games. Collins Epic Wargames. Common Man Games. Connect 4. Conquistador Games. Contender Brands. Convergent Games. Cool Studio. Corvus Belli. Cosmodrome Games. Crafty Games. Crash Games. Creations Chaos. Creativity Street. Crooked Dice Game Design Studio.

CrowD Games. Cryptozoic Entertainment. Cubicle 7. Czech Games Edition. Daily Magic Games. Dan Verssen Games. Dancing Eggplant Games. Dann Kriss Games. Daring Play. DaVinci Games. Days of Wonder. DC Comics. Decision Games. Deinko Games. Devious Weasel Games. Dice Hate Me Games. Dire Wolf. Disney Princess. DLP Games.

Don't Panic Games. Double-Edged Games. DPH Games. Finn's Games. Dragon Dawn Productions. Dream Pod 9. Drei Magier Speile. Dude Games. Dust Studio. Dyce Games. Eagle-Gryphon Games. Educational Advantage. Educational Insights. Elzra Games. Emergent Games. Endless Games. Epoch Everlasting Play. Escape Pod Games. Everything Epic. Evil Hat Productions. Exploding Kittens. Eye 4 Games. Face2Face Games. Family Feud. Family Games Inc. Fantasy Flight Games.

FAO Schwarz. Fat Brain Toys. Ferti Games. Fiery Dragon Productions. Fight in a Box. Final Frontier Games. Fireside Games. Five Rings Publishing Group. Floodgate Games. Flying Frog. Flying Pig Games. Forbidden Games. Formal Ferret Games. Front Porch Classics. Fundex Games. Funnybone Toys. G3 Games.

Gale Force Nine. Game Gallery. Game of Thrones. Game Zone. Games Workshop. GameWick Games. Garphill Games. Gate Keeper Games. Geek Attitude Games. Gen X Games. Giant Goblin Games. GMT Games. Golden Egg Games. Good Games Publishing. Gorilla Games. Grail Games. Grand Gamers Guild. Great Northern Games. Greater Than Games. Green Bay Packers. Green Couch Games. Greenbrier Games. Grey Fox Games. Griddly Games. Griggling Games. Gryphon Forge. Guess Who? Gut Bustin' Games. Hachette Book Group.

Hans Im Gluck. Happy Games Factory. Harry Potter. Haunted Mansion. Heidelberger Spieleverlag. Historical Games Factory. Hog Wild. Hot Ones. Thousands of new board games are published each year, more than our guide to the best board games for beginners could possibly accommodate. Here are a few Wirecutter staff favorites that may not be as approachable for new gamers but have other traits to love.

Why we love it: Between reading and deciphering the dense rulebook and having to correct multiple mistakes on every turn, our first playthrough of Scythe ended up taking six hours. Nonetheless, we were immediately hooked by its immense strategic depth and the beautiful steampunk-meets-pastoral-idyll worldbuilding aesthetic that Wirecutter writer Gregory Han raved about in our gift guide.

Since then, our play times have fallen in line with the tominute estimate, but Scythe has taken over weekly game nights and inspired a dedicated group chat for discussing strategies, making and sharing memes, and planning impromptu sessions.

You might be wondering what kind of people want to invest that much time in a game and keep going back to play over and over. But once you learn the mechanics, playing Scythe will be the only thing you want to do. Players begin with resources including power, popularity, coins, and combat cards , a different starting location, and two optional hidden objectives.

Scythe is an engine-building game, so the goal is to set up systems that will continuously reap resources as the game progresses. Each turn, every player chooses one of four actions on their assigned faction mat. All players have the same set of actions but receive different rewards for them, and each character has a set of unique strengths.

Other than Encounter cards, which players receive on certain newly explored territories, little luck is involved. The game ends after a player places their sixth achievement star on the Triumph Track, but whoever has the most coins wins. It plays just as well with two people as it does with five thanks to the multiple game boards. Once a player picks their characters, they get a set of tiles representing their troops, and on their turn use them to take over land on the board.

This continues for a number of rounds depending on the number of players, and whoever has collected the most gold earned mostly by acquiring land throughout the game wins. Why we love it: Betrayal at House on the Hill is what would happen if H. Lovecraft wrote a Scooby-Doo episode and turned it into a party game. Each player is assigned a character with different traits, including sanity, knowledge, might, and speed. As they explore a spooky mansion, they collect items and experience wacky, atmospheric events, from running into spiders to playing games with a creepy child who gets aggressive with his toys.

The strategy in Betrayal at House on the Hill is minimal, but the camp factor is high, so players can get goofy. In the rooms, players may acquire an event, item, or omen card. The players read the cards out loud—silly voices encouraged, in the spirit of telling a ghost story with a flashlight under your face around a campfire. For event cards, players may face a dice challenge based on their traits.

Players can also acquire magical items around the house to help them later on, but discovering omen cards has a chance of triggering the second phase of the game. In the second phase, called the Haunt, one player turns traitor and is assigned one of more than a hundred unique scenarios. The traitor faces off against the remaining players in a dramatic final battle until one side emerges victorious.

Scrabble is a beloved word game. Players are given a set number of wooden letter tiles to begin, and each letter is assigned a different point value. You will immediately start analyzing your letter tiles to see what possible word combinations you might be able to create to play the most point-rich words. Once one player has used all his or her tiles the game ends and points are tallied, but whoever ends up with the most points is the real winner. These games demand skill and patience as you plot out trails, claim resources, and chart new territories.

There are two grids for each player. One grid is used for placing your own vessels and tracking hits made against you, while the second grid is for marking the hits targeted at your opponent.

If a hit makes contact with a ship, then that strike gets pegged with red. The number of hits each kind of vessel can sustain before it sinks is varied. In this game, a map of the world is spread out on the game board, and all of the continents are broken up into territories. The end goal is for one player to conquer all 42 territories and eliminate the other players along the way.

But first, a little diplomacy is required to get there. We should add a time warning on this one, as a complete game of Risk can last upward of a few hours. Nobody ever said total world domination would happen quickly. Stratego is like a Napoleonic version of capture the flag.

In this two-person game of military moves, players arrange all 40 of their game pieces in whatever order they choose. There are 12 different kinds of pieces, and each plays a different role that needs to be considered during setup.

There are many layers of strategy involved in a successful setup, making this game as enjoyable for adults as it is for kiddos. Tread carefully—there are bombs planted to throw you off track and spies doing recon for the enemy.

Players represent the Axis powers and the Allied powers, and in every turn get to make both combat and non-combat moves across the globe as well as decide what military units to build and whether or not to fund research. Depending on the agreed-upon end goal, the aim is for your powers to have control of of the victory cities. Will the Allied or Axis powers prevail?

Game pieces consist of pawns, rooks, bishops, knights, a queen, and a king, and there are different rules about how each piece can move. The best piece of advice we can give for this game is to take a step back and assess the whole situation before making a big move. Turns out, Chess is also a pretty good metaphor for life.

Backgammon is another board game that has been around for centuries. The playing area consists of 24 triangles of alternating colors and a bar down the middle of the board. The game is often incorporated into a folding case, which makes for easy cleanup and storage.

To play, you are responsible for moving a set of 15 checkers around the board, with moves dictated by the rolling of two dice. You and your opponent are each responsible for 12 uniform game pieces, which you are allowed to move diagonally across the 8x8 checkerboard. Checkers is relatively easy to learn, making it a great way to introduce younger players to games of strategy. Chinese Checkers is an approachable multiplayer strategy game that you can play with your whole family.

The wooden game board features a series of holes in the shape of a six-pointed star. Each point on the star is home to 10 colored pegs or marbles. Players take turns moving one of their pieces at a time. You can only move one space at a time. However, if you have arranged your pieces in such a way that you can jump over them, you can advance multiple spaces in a single play much to the chagrin of your fellow players.

Heading out on a road trip? Try making your own magnetic Chinese Checkers game. Each player is given a set of 21 tiles in a specific playing color, and every tile in that set is a different geometric figure. To start the game, each player places the tile of his or her choosing in one of the corners of the square game board.

As play continues, it grows increasingly tricky to place your tiles on the board. Tiles of the same color are only allowed to touch at one corner, while tiles of different colors may share sides. Try to play all 21 of your tiles to win Blokus. In Agricola, if you work hard and play smart, your farm will flourish. The game is based on the premise that you are a farmer in 17th century Europe, and as such, you must perform the necessary duties to take care of your animals and land and provide for your family.

Work the fields and build up your homestead. Then grow your family to have more helping hands, but make sure you have enough resources to feed them come harvest. There are six harvests in a round game of Agricola. Players accrue points during that time for things like owning animals, having fenced-in stables, and building bigger houses. After the final round has been played, the farmer with the most points and likely the most prosperous farm wins. These games are fun for kids to play and help them develop skills like critical thinking, creativity, and team building.

All you need to do is take turns with another player dropping tokens into the open slots on the game. To win, connect four of your colored tokens as quickly as possible, whether horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. If they have three in a row, you just might need to use your next turn to drop a strategically placed token to prevent them from connecting four of their own. Twister will, as the box promises, have you twisted up in knots and probably doubled over laughing, too.

The mat has four rows of different colored dots and a cardboard spinner broken up into quadrants that dictates what body part goes on what color dot. You will definitely be eliminated if you fall, but you also risk elimination if someone catches you resting a knee or elbow on the mat.

See who can hold out the longest and become the Twister champion. The retrieval process can be tricky though. After all of the operations have been completed, the doctor with the most money wins. Players take turns tapping out ice cubes with one of the small plastic mallets provided. A player has to keep tapping the same ice cube until it becomes dislodged and falls from the ice tray, even if additional ice cubes also become dislodged in the process.

The more ice cubes that fall, the more precarious things become for the little penguin. Play continues until the penguin eventually falls through the ice. Hungry Hungry Hippos is a fast-paced marble-chomping game suitable for young players.

Four colorful and hungry hippos on the game board are trying to chow down on 20 marbles that are launched into the middle of the board. Players rapidly press a lever, which controls the hippo, in an effort to gobble up the most marbles. After all of the marbles have been consumed, count how many your hippo caught.

The player whose hippo chomped down on the most marbles wins. Boggle consists of 16 six-sided letter dice in a square tray. First you have to scramble the letters, which means putting the cover on the tray and giving it a good shake. Start the sand timer and write down all the possible words you can find. Words can be made from letters that are horizontal, vertical, or diagonal to one another, but they must be at least three letters long.

Once time is up, compare your lists of words with the other players. Any words that appear on more than one list are crossed out. Hurry, scurry, little mouse! Try not to get trapped as you circle the board and collect cheese tokens.

Roll the die to advance spaces, but be sure to keep an eye on the other sneaky mice as you move around the board. Some mice might evade the trap, but in the end, all but one will have been captured. The last mouse still in play wins. We love Jenga for its ease of play. Setup is quick. Build a tower from the 54 small wooden blocks provided—three blocks wide by 18 blocks high. Players then take turns removing one block from within the tower and placing it back on the top. Cross your fingers and hold your breath as the tower grows taller and more unstable with every move.

See how many rounds you can go before the tower comes crashing down. The last person to successfully place a block before the tower tumbles is considered the winner. In each round of this two-person game, one player gets to create the code and the other player tries to crack it. Using any combination of the six colors provided, the codemaster secretly creates a code that is comprised of just four pegs.

The second player then begins a guess-and-check process to figure out the code by placing a series of any four pegs onto the board. After the first guess, the codemaster provides feedback for any pegs that are accurately placed or any pegs that are the right color but in the wrong spot.

The second player then guesses again by placing a second row of pegs, and the process continues until either the code is cracked or the second player runs out of guesses. Qwirkle is a game of colors and patterns. The game contains wooden tiles with different colored shapes on them. Players start with six tiles drawn at random from a bag. Use your tiles to create lines on the playing area that have the same color or pattern, and earn a point for each tile you play.