For me it was either Arkham Horror 2nd edition or Last Night on Earth. Big thematic games with some fun mechanics that we would have stories about playing for months after they were finished.
Ppreviously played Cluedo and Exploding Kitten very casually maybe 2-5 times a year.
Then 3 years ago, I joined a Talisman (4e + Dungeon expansion) 6 player game that lasted 5.5hrs and I stayed in the chair from start to finish. Won the game by 1 turn after completing the dungeon and teleporting to the crown which was being used to finish me off by the last player.
There was assistance from other players with rule clarifications and some tips, so not a solo win.
Now 180 games in the collection(with 30-40 Wall o Shame), I’m regularly exploring the mechanics and previous classics that are out there.
I grew up with the Ravensburger box of classics so, board games were always a part of my childhood. They quickly captured my imagination and I began to draw roll and move boards, explaining to my mom what should happen on each space.
When I got older the whole family got into games and that turned into a nice sunday tradition.
Eventually I got sucked into BGG and never financially recovered…
As a kid, I liked boardgames but I haven't really been introduced to anything that you couldn't find on a toy store so I didn't know about "real" boardgames before I found a YouTube series called "Tabletop". They basically recorded playthroughs of different types of boardgames with amazing production. That series really opened me up to the world of boardgaming and gave me a good enough sample of different boardgames that I could have an idea of what kind of games I liked.
For it wasn’t Catan. I liked Catan, sure. Played it a few times when it came out. But what did it for me was that my partner at the time went to Spiel in Essen every year, and after we got together dragged me there in 2003. I looked around, a lot was really interesting, and then ended up buying Alhambra for myself. First board game I got for myself. And that really did it. It was far from a perfect game, but this whole expo-then-bought-a-game thing really cemented the idea of not only playing board games but also wanting to have a collection so I can play them with friends when they come over in me.
Aaaand, nowadays I have a 6x4 Kallax filled with games. 🙈
I played some board games here and there; a little Risk, a little Catan. Then a few years ago I was gifted Spirit Island and it just took off. I’ve played a good number of other games since, but a friend and I have been getting together to play Spirit Island almost every week for the last couple of years, and I don’t see any signs of it slowing down.
For me it was the notoriously shitty Civilization (2002). I was around 11 years old. Any designer board game is incredible if it’s the first one you’ve ever played.
I’d always liked board games, but the wife and I never had anything beyond the ‘classics’, which were fun but kind of been there done that sort of vibe. Then one day a couple years ago we went down to our friend’s house and they showed us Unstable Unicorns, Dixit, and Munchkin and our minds were blown. We immediately started buying the games we’d played and a couple more that had cool art and as we played more with friends and by ourselves we kept buying more and more, even being able to show our friends games they hadn’t heard of. And now we have too many 🤣
Playing Wingspan as we speak!! I was a huge bird nut growing up so that one was an instant pickup when I heard about it. I still even have a box of a ton of bird statues and pictures in storage.
I’ve been meaning to check out Cascadia, and I’ll have to add Meadow to the list of potentials as well. Parks is another pretty fun nature one that we have, really cool art.
I do really enjoy Wingspan now, the artwork and production quality is a huge appeal, I also use the Wingsong app when my son’s around, as he enjoys hearing the birds.
I love Cascadia, it’s not deep and I feel I’ve maxed out my strategy, but it’s such a pleasure to play, especially with non gamers.
I was looking at Parks last week, do you have either expansion? Was hoping for a big box, but there aren’t any plans.
As a kid I liked boardgames, but often I would have to play them alone and would play some of them on the PlayStation or similar. This basically started the transition of playing games on video consoles and later PC. Boardgames became a forgotten pastime and I raveled in the complexity of pc games for many years. I even disregarded boardgames because I thought they could not compete with the glory of PC games. Of course I was utterly wrong.
It all changed when I got Slay the Spire Early Access on PC and loved it. My gf also saw the game and liked it as well. We both thought its silly to play what in essence is a card game alone, on our own computers. So we venture to a local boardgame shop and told them that we play Slay the Spire and the lad, in his wisdom, suggested Dominion. What a great start it was! We played Dominion for like 9 months pretty much every evening before we thought it could use an addon. Soon more and more games and expansions entered our collection. Here we are, 5 years later and boardgames have become a very central part of our hobbies.
Ah that’s a great story, I had the same experience early on, got heavily into video games for a long time before wanting something more tactile and social. I enjoy Slay and Monster Train, maybe I should check out Dominion. I’m not very good at them…
If I start dating again, board games will be an essential requirement :D
They generally still don’t. I’m very picky about my board games and also about the people I play with. If you just grab a random well liked board game and a number of average board game enthusiast and sit me at a table with them. I might have a good time but it’s unlikely.
I feel the same way about the people, in my case anyone who takes it too seriously, takes ages every turn or doesn’t like losing can cause me to lose interest.
Are there specific genres you don’t like, or is it a light/heavy weight thing?
People taking it too seriously are one thing. Another is people not taking games seriously at all. As in they just come to chat and barely engage with the game and won’t learn the rules even after multiple times playing. They will also be super lax with the rules and basically do whatever.
The worst offenders are the ones who are super lax with the rules, taking back turns etc, unless it is against themselves. Maybe I just had some bad luck. My current board games group is super fun though.
As for games I dislike games where the good choices are too obvious. It doesn’t have to be heavy to achieve that imo. But it has to have a minimum of complexity for me to enjoy it.
I’ve always had the core family bargains around the house; Cluedo, Monopoly, chess, backgammon, as well as slightly older pub games like shove ha’penny, shut the box, devil among the tailors (pub tabletop skittles). But with the young family a couple of years ago we started looking for new things, found Carcassonne & settlers of catan. Pride of the newest games I have is split between ‘The King is Dead’ and a full size Carrom table. And I built my own Mah Jong table to house an automatic mechanism that shuffles the tiles and racks them for you. (We’ve had a traditional set for years and always played a UK version of Hong Kong rules across a couple of generations.) Yeah I clicked with board games as a kid and have always looked forward to a chance to play them with family and friends.
I’ve still not played Catan, but I’ve converted a few friends with Cascadia. Catan is the most controversial game I’ve come across, plenty of lovers and haters in equal measure
Been playing board games of one stripe or another since I was 4-5yrs old and my dad taught me how to play chess, backgammon, checkers, Monopoly etc. Early teens brought more complex games like Shogun, Catan and Roborally (I am HORRENDOUSLY bad at games with move programming like Roborally) along with CCG’s and RPG’s into the mix.
Jeez! Now I feel really old realizing I’ve been gaming for nearly 40yrs.
Love it! I hope I’m setting my kids up to enjoy gaming. Been playing chess with one since he was 6, have enjoyed watching him discover strategies and understand how to defend.
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