Board games, or as they're mostly known today as "tabletop games" are some of the most fun players will ever have with a group of friends. It's hard to realize that if they're a casual fan of board games, but deep in the catalogs of gamers' minds they have a memory when they really got into a tabletop game with friends.
The days of tabletop games getting a bad rep are over; games today are more modern and have a mixture of casual and advanced elements to make for a great experience for everyone. The following games weren't chosen lightly, so hopefully, tabletop gaming fans pick one up and try it out on their next group outing.
10 Pandemic
It might be a little blackly comic to start off our list with Pandemic in the wake of our own global crisis, but hey, it's just too good a game to keep off this list. Unlike a lot of board games where players compete against their friends, in Pandemic players work together to stop an ever-evolving disease.
Players do this each turn by choosing between four actions which include traveling between cities, treating infected populaces, attempting to discover a cure, or building a research station. It's not easy, and more often than not players will find themselves and their group losing, but that makes it all the more fun to give it another try.
9 Secret Hitler
If gamers want a game that will cause mass hysteria within a friend group than look no further. Secret Hitler will tear players and their groups of friends apart -- players will see who's the best liar, the most deceptive -- and certainly who can shout the loudest. The game is split into two sides, Fascists and Liberals and one player who plays as a hidden Hitler.
The Fascists know who's on their side, but not the Liberals. Each turn players draw three cards -- only revealed to themselves -- and play one that will further the Fascist or Liberal agenda. The first team to five cards wins, but most of the way players won't know who the heck is on whose team.
8 Exploding Kittens
Exploding Kittens is another no-brainer when it comes to must-have tabletop games. It's basically this century's version of Uno, except it takes a lot more strategy and is sure to provide a ton more laughs. The object of the game is to not draw an exploding kitten card which will cause players to lose the game unless they have a defuse card. No defuse and they lose.
Along the way there are so many interesting cards for players to play like "See the Future" which allows players to view the top three cards, "Attack" which forces the next player to draw two cards and an all-time favorite card, "Nope" which can be played at any time and negates any action.
7 Ticket To Ride
Ticket to Ride has become a modern classic among the tabletop community and should be a game that all board game fans give a try. Each turn players will collect cards that allow them to claim train routes all throughout North America. The goal should be to extend the train route as far as players can without having any opponents stop it in its tracks.
"The rules are simple enough to write on a train ticket – each turn players either draw more cards, claim a route, or get additional Destination Tickets," says Ticket to Ride designer, Alan R. Moon. "The tension comes from being forced to balance greed – adding more cards to your hand, and fear – losing a critical route to a competitor."
6 Catan
While Ticket to Ride is in the process of becoming a modern classic, Catan has not only reached that status, but become one of the best tabletop games ever released. Published in Germany in 1995, the game has sold more than 22 million copies in 30 different languages.
It may look complicated, but at it's bare-bones all players have to do is roll dice -- the rest is the decisions they make. Each tile piece grants players resources if they've built a settlement around it and the dice equates that number. It's like Risk meets Sid Meier's Civilization, because they can win in many different ways while also forming tight-alliances or committing sudden betrayals to win.
5 Betrayals At House On The Hill
Role-playing game genre of tabletop games as they quickly turn off many "casual" fans, but should fans give this one a chance, they may find it to their liking. While games like Dungeons & Dragons and Puerto Rico are incredibly fun, they're hard to get into for a lot of people -- still worth gamers time if they have the patience.
But one RPG that appeals to casual and experienced tabletop fans alike is Betrayal At House On The Hill. players are set in a haunted house where random events keep occurring leading up to the reveal that one of the members of the party has betrayed the others! The betrayer than takes the role of one of the games 50 different monsters while the rest of the group tries to defeat them.
4 One Night Ultimate Werewolf (Mafia)
If gamers aren't willing to dish out the wads of cash that it costs to get any of these quality tabletop games that we've mentioned and will go on to mention, then look no further than Mafia. There are more official versions of the game like One Night Ultimate Werewolf or Town of Salem, but fans still prefer the original which only requires a deck of cards.
The game is simple, two-to-three members of the group will be in the mafia while the rest of the group are either villagers, a doctor, or the detective. The mafia only know who each other are and their goal is to kill everyone else, while the rest have to find out who the mafia are and vote to kill them. The game ends when one group is completely dead.
3 Risk
It'd be impossible to finish this list without adding a classic to this list. Sure nothing is more classic than Monopoly and Cards Against The Humanity is a mainstay at Millennial and Gen Z social gatherings across the globe. But it's the game that caused Kramer and Newman from Seinfeld to play over the course of days that makes our list.
Risk takes a long time to play and that may turn many off from it, but once players get into it they won't stop. The mission is simple... take over the world! And in doing so players will have to defeat the armies of their friends while they conquer the greatest nations.
2 Articulate
Trivia is another genre this article tried to steer clear of, because while they may be fun for a short amount of time, they certainly lose their luster after a few plays. But there is one trivia game that just couldn't be ignored and that's Articulate.
The game is simply a blast to play with friends as players split up into different groups, answering questions resulting in the number of spaces that they will move around the board. It's just fun to see friends sweating bullets over one-to-two word answers. It's a game that any tabletop fan should own.
1 Mall Madness
Now it's time to end this list off with a BANG! And there ain't no game that's as banging as Milton Bradley's Mall Madness. All jokes aside, this game is a ton of fun whether players are teenage girls who just received the game for her 13th birthday or a 40-year old man with a neckbeard.
The goal of the game is to SHOP TILL YOU DROP and use mom's credit card to fulfill the six purchases on players' buyer card, then make a mad dash back to the car. There's even a voice module in the middle which tells players where the sales and clearances are -- overall one smashing game.