Boardgame Recommendations For Xmas?

Thanks to GamerDad for their article discussing recommended board games to buy or play this Christmas. The writer argues: "Particularly in the last ten years, board games have evolved and changed, so that they are a far cry from the games of old", and goes on to recommend anything from the Lord Of The Rings board game ("one of the most unique board games of recent years"), to Dvonn ("A game that could best be compared to the abstract strategy of checkers.") What are you going to be buying novice board gamer relatives this Xmas?

Comments

cheapass games

[dr_leviathan]

There are lots of good boardgames available from Cheapass Games: http://www.cheapass.com. I usually buy 4 or 5 games from them around christmas time as stocking stuffers.

Spiel des Jahres

[clamatius]

For those of you not in the know, the Germans own the boardgame market. Boardgames are a much bigger cultural thing in Germany than anywhere else. Almost all the best boardgames are German in origin and luckily you can mostly get them in English translations. Rio Grande is the biggest manufacturer of translated German games.

For family-style boardgames with a bit of depth, you can't go wrong with any of the Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) winners. This is an annual award. As I recall, it's awarded at the Essen Game Festival. Winners tend to be fairly simple games suitable for family play (rather than being aimed at hard-core gamers) while having enough strategy to satisfy the hard-core gamer at the same time.

I have never played a bad game that won the Spiele des Jahres. Some of my favourites that have won in previous years:

Settlers of Catan
Manhattan
Carcassonne
Mississippi Queen

As the parent points out, Puerto Rico is also a fabulous game and I would highly recommend it.