1. Mysterium is a HUGE hit among my gaming circles. It’s like modern day Clue, but you’re the dead person and the players are all psychics trying to solve your murder.

2. Inis. It’s a territory control game but unlike all others that I’ve played, one where all players are engaged and have a chance to win until almost the very end. And you usually have to be very cunning to pull off a win.

3. This War Of Mine. The video game is pretty fun but difficult, and although the board game is the same game, it’s a lot of fun playing with friends. Do we give the starving kids our last portion of food, or do we keep it? It is loads of fun saying our opinions on certain situations throughout the game, and so to me, it is the best board game I’ve played yet.

4. Ticket to Ride (Europe version with the full-sized cards).

I despise board nights. I hate them. My wife loves them. I was really skeptical of this one a friend brought over. Ended up loving it. My wife and I bought our own and we play it a couple of times a month on our own now. It’s great.

5. Unstable Unicorns. Recently got it and my wife and I can’t put it down

6. Red Dragon Inn. A game based around drinking and gambling and what happens at the Inn when your D&D adventuring party shows up.

7. I like Forbidden Desert; you and the other players aren’t competing with each other, you actually work together to try to win the game. Either you all win by escaping the desert or you all lose.

8. BANG! It’s a Spaghetti Western Spoof Game made by Belgians and written in Italian. If that’s not enough to sell you on this game IDK what is. Plus you can make all sorts of “Yeah we were Bang!ing last night” jokes.

9. I fucking love Dixit. I’m great at reading people and deciphering situations like that. I not only guess the main card, but can usually guess everyone else’s. And of course I play my own card very well, with just enough subtlety, usually targeting the person that I want to guess it, someone with fewer points.

I rarely lose. People think it’s luck or that it’s similar to Cards Against Humanity, but it’s not. The fact that it uses pictures forces people to play correctly, not for shock factor. I can’t win Cards Against Humanity because people pick randomly. In dixit, they pick with their hearts, so to speak.

10. Mall Madness, swipe that credit card and walk out the store, and the main goal is to buy fucking everything.

11. Codenames and Wits & Wagers are my family’s favorite party games. Codenames involves guessing words from scant clues while Wits & Wagers involves guessing at trivia questions no one could possibly know the answer to, then betting on who you think got closest to the correct answer.

12. Legendary Marvel is not a perfect game. It’s a pain to set-up and break-down and the expansions introduce a lot of unnecessary bloat. But it captures the superhero theme in such a fun way and my kids adore it. It doesn’t belong on this list, but I have to mention it because it is a huge hit with my family and friends.

13. Secret Hitler. Loads of fun, lots of arguing and (falsely) accusing people of being Hitler or being a dirty fascist.

14. Betrayal At The House On The Hill. A cool board game where you explore until you trigger the second half of the game, where each exploration and each second half of the game is different, with different rules and objectives that depends on the trigger and location.

It is really fun, but the second half can involve a bit of reading (like a small page but still).

15. Lords of Waterdeep is a really great game for just about anyone. It is light and easy to learn, and still fun for more seasoned board gamers.

16. 7 Wonders! Easy to learn and heavily strategy based, great for a small group or a crowd – takes about 30-45 min per game.

17. I like Pandemic a lot. It’s co-op and involves a lot of strategy and teamwork.

18. Carcasonne. The rules are simple enough that a new player can dive right in right away, but with enough strategy to keep things interesting.

I also like the expansions. It adds a lot more fun.

19. If you have 8 hours per game, Axis and Allies is pretty good.

20. Going for a new game here, but Scythe. I love the mix between resource gathering and combat and how you have to plan your moves so far ahead like in chess.

21. Betrayal is such a good game with so many alternate endings. It’s hard to get sick of the game with an ever-changing board and 50 different endings (more now with the expansion)

Only downside is its best played with at least 4 players, preferably 5-6.

22. Chess. Seriously, chess is an amazing game.

23. Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate. I like that it’s basically the same game as Betrayal at House on the Hill with a few added features that IMO make it better. The exploration is fun, the dynamic change after the betrayal is super fun, and the fact that every game is likely going to be different is what really makes it.

24. Risk. Haven’t played in a while but I just remember how much fun the strategy was. Especially against my brother and eventually one of us would realize we lost (after playing for hours) and flip the board.

25. Evolution!! So much fun and so many different combinations to win with.

26. Tough choice. There are so many great games in different genres that they can’t really be compared. Power Grid is my favorite that got me into board games.

27. My friends and I have had a lot of fun playing The Binding of Isaac board game recently. Out of the 4 of us only 2 have played the video game, so that’s not important.

It’s one of those games that are more about the interactions you have with one another when playing it, rather than the game itself.

28. Currently I’d probably rate Brass as my favorite. The original was great and about a year or so ago Roxley Kickstarted an updated version with improved graphics etc. and also made a slightly modified one called Brass: Birmingham (Brass: Lancashire being pretty much the original with some minor fixes from the ~2007 version). Rules are fairly simple to pick up, but there is a ton of depth and strategy involved so you won’t get bored soon.

29. There’s this game that a small local organization makes called Werewolf. It’s essentially the same as Mafia or Town of Salem, but it’s a card game. One or two people are werewolves, the rest are villagers, but nobody knows who’s who. Kill the werewolves, profit.

I have some very special memories attached to this game, so yeah. Best board game ever, imo.

30. Pretty Pretty Princess. No seriously. Best game because you get jewelry, you steal jewelry from others and in the end somebody gets the crown and title. Every 90’s party with goths to frat boys had somebody drunk enough to drag this game out and it always led to a raucous good time and one happy blinged up person lording over us all they were the prettiest princess of all!