Ask HN: What are your favorite board games?
I have many, so in no particular order:<p>* KingDomino, simple, relaxing, can be played with 4 year old, as well as two tired parents in around 30 minutes. It is a simple game, resulting map of your kingdom can look nice and it has cute art on the tiles :) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamegeek.com&#x2F;boardgame&#x2F;204583&#x2F;kingdomino" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamegeek.com&#x2F;boardgame&#x2F;204583&#x2F;kingdomino</a><p>* RailRoad Ink, everybody has a little whiteboard map and every turn somebody rolls some dice to see what kinds of railroad tracks will you need to scribble into the grid of your map. It is a nice puzzle, you score points for connecting pre-printed railroad exits on the edges on your map, but you only know four pieces of the railroad grid at the time. It is quick (after seven rolls of four dice, you are done), and if you are lucky, your map can look really nice in the end. Only drawback is, that everybody solves the puzzle on his own, and I do like boardgames where you interact a bit more :) Second drawback is, that the puzzle itself is too complicated for my 4 year-old :D <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamegeek.com&#x2F;boardgame&#x2F;245654&#x2F;railroad-ink-deep-blue-edition" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamegeek.com&#x2F;boardgame&#x2F;245654&#x2F;railroad-ink-deep...</a><p>* Carcasonne, a classic. Another tile-laying game, where you slowly build up a map dotted with many walled cities (hence the name :) You can claim an unfinished city or road or a field with your meeple to claim points, but if it happens i.e. two unfinished cities belonging to two players are connected to form a single whole, the player that has more meeples in the city scores points. This creates a fun dynamic of complicated city take-overs (because you can&#x27;t just invade, right, you build next-door and hope for a city- connecting tile) My wife managed to get the big box, with several expansions, and even though it is longer than other games we use to play, we play this fairly regularly. And the map at the end of the game can look really nice (I am starting to see a trend :P) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamegeek.com&#x2F;boardgame&#x2F;822&#x2F;carcassonne" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamegeek.com&#x2F;boardgame&#x2F;822&#x2F;carcassonne</a><p>* PatchWork - a slightly abstract puzzle, reminds me of tetris a bit, playable in 20 minutes for two players, but it still retains the &quot;Don&#x27;t you take that tile, I need it for my board!&quot; that can be fun :)<p>* Hero Realms - a reasonably quick deck-building card-game. I use it to scratch my magic-the-gathering itch :) And when you get a good card-combo going it can be really satisfying :) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamegeek.com&#x2F;boardgame&#x2F;198994&#x2F;hero-realms" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamegeek.com&#x2F;boardgame&#x2F;198994&#x2F;hero-realms</a><p>* Colt Express - a wild-west-train heist game. Weirdly we found it fun only when playing as two players or more than four :D With several players, the game devolves into comedy of errors, you everybody trying to get the best of their foiled plans. With two players, the experience is much more tactical, as you play as a team of two thieves on the train, giving you bigger chance to plan and anticipate the oponent.  Feeling of actually executing your plan in this game is amazing :) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamegeek.com&#x2F;boardgame&#x2F;158899&#x2F;colt-express" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamegeek.com&#x2F;boardgame&#x2F;158899&#x2F;colt-express</a><p>* Hive, probably the last game we actually get to the table at home, a interesting, chess-like game for two players. Unfortunately, the first player seems to have a big advantage? We still like it :-) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamegeek.com&#x2F;boardgame&#x2F;2655&#x2F;hive" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamegeek.com&#x2F;boardgame&#x2F;2655&#x2F;hive</a><p>* Ticket To Ride, that we no longer have at home, but if I ever make space for the big box, I might get it again :-) Connecting USA with rails is fun, hoping your oponents don&#x27;t snatch the one route you need is exciting, and scoring points for your networked cities you were tasked to connect is rewarding. Only thing I don&#x27;t like that much is the way you build the tracks by collecting cards of the same color, that can take too long. At least it is simple enough to play with casual board-gamers. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamegeek.com&#x2F;boardgame&#x2F;9209&#x2F;ticket-ride" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamegeek.com&#x2F;boardgame&#x2F;9209&#x2F;ticket-ride</a><p>* SmallWorld, the game I enjoyed the most while still at high-school (even though we played Bang much more) It is really well balanced for all the numbers of players and the gimmic of trying to choose the most overpowered race available is fun :) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamegeek.com&#x2F;boardgame&#x2F;40692&#x2F;small-world" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamegeek.com&#x2F;boardgame&#x2F;40692&#x2F;small-world</a><p>* PowerGrid, probably the heaviest economic game I have played. Trying to power half of germany with you electric company can be a mind bending puzzle, then you add a layer of trying to out-bid your opponents to get the <i>good</i> power-plant, and moment later you realize you bid too high, you won&#x27;t have resources to <i>run</i> the power-plant and your opponent could get his plant really cheap :D <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamegeek.com&#x2F;boardgame&#x2F;2651&#x2F;power-grid" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamegeek.com&#x2F;boardgame&#x2F;2651&#x2F;power-grid</a><p>* SecretHitler, the game we played the most at the office at my previous team? Reasonably quick, rules are simple and hidden-role games are nice for large groups of players <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamegeek.com&#x2F;boardgame&#x2F;188834&#x2F;secret-hitler" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamegeek.com&#x2F;boardgame&#x2F;188834&#x2F;secret-hitler</a> (runner-up would probably be Coup <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamegeek.com&#x2F;boardgame&#x2F;131357&#x2F;coup" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boardgamegeek.com&#x2F;boardgame&#x2F;131357&#x2F;coup</a>)<p>* GalaxyTrucker, the epitome of &quot;Loosing is fun&quot;. You cobble together a space-ship and then you fly through various hazards and in the end your ship is barely standing, but hey, you survived :D If you liked FTL and don&#x27;t mind randomness, it is a great game. Only drawback is, that if build too good of a ship, the game stops being fun. We tried to solve this with my cousin by limitting the time you have to build the ship even more and then we even hacked togegether a PVP phase where we destroy each other&#x27;s ship with all those weapons you&#x27;d usually use to defend against pirates and asteroids :D And it does scratch my itch of &quot;look at all these tiles laying besides each other, my monstrosity of a sip is beautiful&quot; :D<p>Man, almost a 1000 words just listing some of my favourite boardgames. And I might keep going. I should probably start a blog  :D