Level Up With These 5 Tabletop Games

Board games that most people are used to can get tedious. Are you ready to step up from classic tabletop games like Life and Monopoly? Tabletop games made after the '90s minimize downtime and make players’ choices matter, keeping everybody at the table on the edge of their seats. This list is for those that want to take gaming past the rainy days.

1) Ticket to Ride

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Ticket to Ride is by far the easiest game on the list. It still has a similar amount of randomness to classic board games, but your choices matter much more. Playing this game can help get you used to learning new rules while adding some variety to the table. Its theme is the American Gilded Age railroad industry, although there are many variations of the classic game with maps of cities from all over the world. It's straightforward with players competing to build the longest railroad with their train pieces while meeting their goals to connect to specific destinations.

2) Any Social Deduction Game

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There are many different games in this genre such as Coup, Secret Hitler and Resistance. I couldn’t pick between them since they all have the same goal and I like them all. They require deducing the identity of your opponents and either being the last one standing or accomplishing a hidden goal. This involves large amounts of bluffing, alliances and backstabs, which keeps everybody on the edge of their seat.

3) Pandemic

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Pandemic is one of the more multi-layered games on the list, accessible to beginners and fun for all. The theme is as simple as epidemiologists trying to stop pandemics, something familiar in modern times. Pandemic is a co-op game where players are working together to prevent diseases from spreading across the world by traveling on the board and deciding the best course of action. 

4) Wingspan

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Wingspan is a game with the wholesome theme of North American avian wildlife. Players compete for birds in their wildlife reserves, eggs and objectives. Wingspan is one of the more relaxed and casual games on this list. Its art is undoubtedly the best on this list with images representing dozens of different birds evoking the whimsical feeling one gets when standing in the forest with birds chirping. Its pieces are also very high quality representing eggs, different bird diets and its dice are even wooden! 

5) Catan

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Catan is a classic — the most popular game on this list with the most expansions. It is considered the founder of the board game renaissance. All players have the same goal of reaching 10 victory points through trading with other players, building settlements, cities, and completing milestones and hidden objectives. Catan is the first game I would recommend to anyone wanting to get into the board game hobby and even to those who are tabletop hobbyists but haven’t played it yet as it is something very straightforward yet strategic.

Learning how to play board games can be different for everyone, in terms of both method and difficulty. I personally enjoy researching and learning rules, but that is not the same for everybody. No matter what, I would recommend watching a video that you can find on YouTube and then looking up questions on the rule sheet or online. If you’re on a budget but have a computer, you could also get the game Tabletop Simulator, where people give access to many board games for free digitally through mods.

Don’t be afraid to try out new things, especially if someone you know recommends it. If you're looking for people to play with, there are public groups on websites like meetup.com and there is even a huge community on discord for those who want to play digitally! But the number one rule for finding a game to play is to go for the “rule of cool” and choose whichever you think sounds the coolest for you (while being within your budget and experience level)! 

Eli Borowsky (he/him) is a young journalist and a student at Leadership Public Schools, Hayward.

Edited by shaylyn martos