10 Boardgames You Need to Play Right Now, You Stupid Monopoly Monkey, Part 2

Part 1 is here.

We begin our lesson with a clear table, a clear mind, and a crapload of games you just got by blowing the kids' college fund on Amazon. They'll get over it. Like all great sensei through the ages, I begin by robbing you of all that binds you to the past; I sweep you clean, creating a tabula rasa upon which I may scribe the new you.

So, no dice.

Also, no board.

That's right: we start our list of Board Games You Need to Play Right Now with a card game, bitches. Did I just blow your mind?

1) Bohnanza


3-5 players, simple enough for the whole family to play, homicidal green bean on the box cover. Play it, live it, love it. You're supposed to be planting rows of beans or something, but they're crazy German beans, and it doesn't matter anyway, because what matters is that the core gameplay mechanics are solid as steel. There have been a bazillion expansions and variations, but they all play roughly the same: you will find yourself learning simple (if slightly strange) rules, cards will be flung about the table, beans will be stacked and grouped and planted, and then shortly thereafter you will be having insane amounts of fun, and you won't quite be able to point to why. I'll give you a hint: it's not the cartoon beans. It's because you've started playing the kind of game where they print the name of the designer above the title.

That's right, children: in some countries, they actually design their games. Some of those designers are so good, I'll buy a game sight unseen if it's got their name on it. It's a lot like having a movie with a director: they're not all good, but it at least creates a chance that the experience won't suck completely.

Unlike, say, anything Milton Bradley publishes.

Buy it here.

2) Carcassonne


Okay, still no board, and no dice, but let's take those cards and upgrade them into cardboard tiles. I'll also let you have some pieces, but I will not hesitate to take them away if I feel you're abusing the privilege.

2-5 players, still simple enough for all but the youngest players, you're building a city in medieval Europe, blahblahblah. Or, if you prefer, you can be hunting mammoths and shit. Ultimately, it really doesn't matter, because again, we're talking solid core gameplay mechanics. It's a topography/territory grabbing game, not unlike Go in some respects, but you don't need to worry your pretty little head about that. Just play, and thank me later. Or send money. You know what? Just send the money.

Buy it here.

3) Ticket to Ride


That's right! I'm letting you have a board. Still no dice, though. You could do all kinds of harm to yourself. This game is all about laying train tracks across the United States; you can also get the sequel, which lets you do it across Europe. Or Switzerland, or Norway, or you can get the Super Train Nerd version. Whatever floats your boat. 2-5 players, insanely easy to learn, very hard to master, and will have you at your friends' and family's throats in no times because they cut you out of Pittsburgh. You're welcome.

Buy it here.

4) Pandemic


YOU WILL HAVE DICE WHEN YOU CAN SNATCH THEM FROM MY HAND AND NOT A MOMENT BEFORE! Do you think you can take me? Do you?

Well, alright then. Moving on.

Allow me to introduce you to a little thing called a co-op game. That's right: you don't get one winner when you play this game. You all win, or you all lose, together. Given that it's about saving the world from a global pandemic of... well, everything, that makes a great deal of sense. It also makes for an entirely different, and very, very fun, gameplay dynamic. Don't get me wrong: competition, and the resulting resentment, can be fun and even healthy, but sometimes you want to do things as a team, especially when you're playing with your family. Also, I can say from personal experience that it just plain gets boring winning all the time. This way, I am still be the smartest and prettiest person in the room, but I'm lauded for it instead of resented.

Well, maybe lauded and resented.

I can live with it.

Amazon doesn't seem to stock Pandemic. Buy it at your local game store, or here.

5) Puerto Rico


You don't even miss the dice any more do you? I didn't think so.

Okay, now we're hitting the big leagues. This is the first game on this list you'll have to play a couple times before you really get the hang of it. But you will love it. Every nongamer I've gotten to sit through their first game of this has been frothing at the mouth for their second. Hell, my sister loves this game.

It's about growing stuff on plantations in Puerto Rico and shipping it back to the Old Country, but by this point you know better than to care about stuff like that, right? You want to know about how you get to pick one "job" a turn, and that determines what everyone does that turn, only you get to do it better, because you picked the job. And then the next player picks the Ship's Captain, and everything ships before your corn was ready, and you reach across the table and tear their throat out with your hands, and for the first time in your life, you know what it means to be alive, really alive, manslaughter charges be damned, and no jury would convict you anyway, because they picked Ship's Captain and you would have had, like eight corn ready to go in just one more turn.

That bittersweet, coppery taste in your mouth? That's probably blood. But underneath that? That's the taste of fun.

And it only gets better from here.

Oh, and buy it here.

-- The Prolix Wag
Touch that Construction Hut token and I will rip your arm clean off. I swear it.