Festive favourites: board games for Christmas
Slowly but surely we’re getting a clearer picture of what’s in store for us over the festive season at the end of this weirdest of years. It’s looking like getting family together around a table will be ‘a thing’ this year in our part of the world, but with pubs shut in a lot of places and household mingling still limited, Christmas merriment might still need a bit of a helping hand.
That’s where (you guessed it) board games come in! Long a traditional component of Christmas for lots of families, board games have come a very long way over the past decade or so, and have never offered so many effective ways to get the fun started. Here’s our Christmas Games Guide 2020 to help you navigate these crowded waters and find the perfect family game for Christmas…
Fresh but familiar
Does your family crack out their much-loved copy of Monopoly or Cluedo every year for a seasonal set-to? If you’re looking for something to tempt folks away from familiar ground that won’t feel too weird or complicated, here are our top choices for tempting the timid…
Ticket to Ride: This absolute blockbuster of modern board gaming has launched a LOT of people on a journey into the hobby since its release in 2004. Since then a huge number of variations have been published, but we’d always suggest starting with the original: it’s a classic for a reason! Fans of the traditional ‘sitting round a board trying to win’ format will feel right at home with Ticket to Ride. With a healthy mixture of strategy and chance involved in the mechanics, players can improve over time but its unlikely that one person will dominate every single game - perfect for a Christmas gaming binge!
Cryptid: If Cluedo is the family go-to, Cryptid might be the perfect new mystery for you to all get your teeth into. A semi-mythical creature (think Abominable Snowman or Loch Ness Monster) is lurking somewhere in the landscape, and if you can solve the clues you could be the person who finally proves its existence! Each player gets one piece of information about where the creature is (or in the advanced version, isn’t): maybe you know it’s in the forest or lake, or within two spaces of the mountains. During play, you take turns to quiz each other about particular spots on the map, slowly building up a picture of who knows what. Will you be the first to put it all together to identify the one space on the map where the creature could be hiding?
Battle Sheep: Maybe abstract strategy games like Chess or Draughts are where it’s at for your household, but you’d like to make things a little sillier, or perhaps tempt a younger audience to get involved. Battle Sheep has been a staple of our games taster menu for some time now, bringing together the magic ingredients of a speedy set-up, appealing components, minimal rules AND engaging gameplay. It’s accessible enough for ages 6+, works a treat for 2-4 players, and takes only 20 minutes or so to play, so it’s a fun, low-commitment option to find out who’s in a gaming mood.
Kingdomino: We know there are plenty of folks out there who say they don’t like board games (it’s allowed!) but who will happily play a game of cards or dominos. If your household includes one or more of these, then Kingdomino could be a the game you’re looking for. Despite some serious hobby gaming credentials (it won board gaming’s most prestigious award the Spiel Des Jahres in 2017), Kingdomino consists mainly of colourful, double-ended domino tiles which players claim and add to their own little landscape that builds up in front of them to score points. Again, this has a short play time (somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes) and not too many rules, so it works as a taster and can be played by ages 6 and up.
All in this together
One issue that we know can put some families off playing together is hyper-competitiveness, and with limited options available for cooling off this year, not falling out with each other is particularly important! Cooperative games offer a simple solution to the competitiveness problem, putting all players on the same team to try and beat the game by working together. Here are some of out top choices:
Forbidden Desert: Lots of us have been daydreaming about a holiday in the sun this year, and Forbidden Desert makes that dream a reality! The bad news is, your helicopter has crashed in the desert, and the only way to escape before your water runs out is to find and assemble the pieces of a magical airship. Deadly sandstorms and constantly shifting sands make the problem harder, but on the upside you’ve all got a handy special ability, and if you’re lucky you might find some cool equipment along the way to make things easier. This is an ingenious, well-produced game designed by Matt Leacock, the undisputed king of the cooperative genre, and what’s more it comes with an extremely reasonable price tag.
Magic Maze/ Magic Maze on Mars: If you’re happy with the idea of upping the pace to ‘frantic’, Magic Maze and it’s sequel Magic Maze on Mars could be just the adrenaline boost you’re looking for, although if you’re playing after dinner maybe allow a little digestion time before you start! In Magic Maze, players work together to navigate a group of heroes through a fantasy-themed shopping mall, with each hero on a quest for a specific item before the whole gang dashes for the exit. The catch is that rather than each player controlling one hero, players each have a specific group of actions they can perform for all characters. So, maybe you have the skills to move heroes northwards and up escalators, while another player can move east and through portals. This means that players have to work together very closely to beat the game, which is played against the clock, without turns (everyone can move at once) and with NO TALKING! Yes, it’s instantly stressful, but hugely satisfying when you manage to pull it off, and with each scenario lasting under 10 minutes there’s time to get your breath back before you start the next one. Magic Maze on Mars follows the same rough concept, but adds some interesting new challenges and shifts the action to Mars where you play a team of robots preparing for the arrival of a ship full of colonists.
Letter Jam: If you’re traditionally a Scrabble and crossword household and letters are more your jam, then boy do we have the perfect game for you! Letter Jam can feel a little abstract at first, but once you’ve got the hang of it this is a fun, collaborative way to scratch the word puzzle itch. Each player begins with a set of letter cards face down in front of them, which together make up a word chosen secretly by another player. Starting with their leftmost card, players stand one letter upright in front of them so that everyone can see it but them. Everyone then gets to work on coming up with a word that includes as many of the letters they can see as possible (the letters belonging to other players plus a few extra in the centre of the table if you’re playing with a lower player count). If your word is selected by the group, you spell it out by indicating the order of the letters with some nice chunky numbered poker-chip style pieces. Once you’ve had a clue or two that contains your letter, hopefully you’ve got a good idea of what it is and you can move on to your next one. When all players think they’ve identified all their letters, the game ends with a big reveal in which everyone tries to guess the word that their cards spell out. If you all get it right, congratulations - you have won the game together! If not, or if you run out of clue tokens, then better luck next time. Hopefully you all had some fun along the way!
Letting off steam
Board games aren’t necessarily the first thing that springs to mind when you hear the phrase ‘letting off steam’, but we’re here to tell you there are plenty of games around that can help you do just that. At the other end of the spectrum from the friendly, cooperative options above, these games involve grabbing, shouting, a strong likelihood of swearing and even in some cases running around. We’d suggest moving the glassware to a safe distance before you get stuck in!
Pigasus/ Cobra Paw/ Ghost Blitz: We’ve bundled these three together because they all fit the same basic format: look at the clue, then grab for the answer! In Pigasus, you’re trying to spot corresponding pairs of weird animal mash-ups from the cards spread on the table, and grabbing for the adorable squeaky pig toy when you spot a match. It should be simple, but a shark with the head of a gorilla and a gorilla with the head of a shark don’t actually look that similar, so its much trickier than it sounds! Cobra Paw is easier on the brain but makes up for it in sheer violence! Players take turns to roll a pair of extremely satisfying chunky dice, then grab for the domino that matches the pair of symbols shown. Dominos in front of other players are completely fair game - you just have to get to them first! Watch our ‘quick teach’ video here to see it in practice. Last but definitely not least, Ghost Blitz is quite possibly our most played game at The Treehouse, having featured on our taster menu ever since we opened. Five cute wooden objects sit in the middle of the table next to a deck of cards. Players take turns to reveal cards which each feature cartoon drawings of two of the objects. If either object is shown in its original colour, grab that object fast! If not, you want to grab the one object which appears in neither colour nor shape. Ghost Blitz is brain melting, hilarious and totally addictive, and if you get too good at it the game includes some suggestions for mixing things up that are quite simply WILD.
Anomia: This game was recently described by our favourite reviewers Shut Up and Sit Down as ‘a white hot giggle furnace’ and we really couldn’t have put it better ourselves. In some ways this is still a game about grabbing, but this time the grabbing is happening INSIDE YOUR MIND as you scrabble around looking for things you would have thought your brain would always keep handy: a type of beverage for example, or the name of ANY sports team. But, when suddenly put under extreme pressure, its truly amazing how blank you mind can go! This is a perfect, simple, pick-me-up in a box suitable for ages 10+.
Happy Salmon: There’s one game in The Treehouse library which is guaranteed to make its presence known IMMEDIATELY as soon as it hits the table. If you’re visiting the café and everyone in the group next to you simultaneously leaps to their feet and starts yelling at the top of their lungs, your can be pretty sure they’re playing Happy Salmon! In this tiny but explosive game, everyone starts with an identical deck of cards in a random order. Each card has an action on it that you need someone else to help you complete, e.g. giving a high five or swapping places. All you have to do is be the first to complete all you actions in order! Ready… steady… COMMENCE SHOUTING! In the café scenario, we hereby give you permission to politely suggest to the group next door that they try the silent version of the game in which you ask for what you need using gestures alone. At home though, you can be as loud as you like, and Happy Salmon is the perfect way to burn off some mince pie energy without leaving the house!
Getting creative
Perhaps what you’re really after from a Christmas board game is something magical, weird and wonderful that will get everyone thinking about things a little differently or even putting their artistic skills to the test! Here are our top picks for those who want a game to get creative with…
Dixit/ Mysterium Park: These two games have a lot in common - decks of cards full of beautiful, surreal artwork and gameplay that makes you think about what associations and interpretations other players might make to what you’re looking at. Dixit puts a brighter, fairy tale-infused spin on things, while Mysterium Park is darker and altogether more mysterious. Dixit has become a bit of a modern classic since it’s release in 2008, winning the Spiel des Jahres prize in 2010. Mysterium Park on the other hand is a brand new release, offering a slick new take on its fabulous-but-somewhat-fiddly predecessor Mysterium. We’d recommend Dixit to play with children (it’s suitable for ages 8 and up), while Mysterium Park would make a great addition to the collection of any board game geeks in your life!
Just One: Some games are so simple but so effective that it feels like they’ve been discovered rather than designed, and Just One is one such. It’s hard to believe that this game has been out for less than two years, because it’s become such a familiar staple of our regular gaming. It works like this: the guesser for the round draws a card without looking at it, positions it so everyone else can see it, and picks a number between one and five, which corresponds to the number of the word on the card which everyone else now has to help them to guess. The other players all write a word on their own personal mini whiteboard which they think will be a helpful clue. The guesser shuts their eyes, the other players share their clues with each other, and any duplicate words are eliminated. The guesser then looks at what’s left and tries to guess the starting word. It’s beautifully simple, keeps things friendly, packs just enough tension to keep things interesting, and the need to come up with a unique clue gets everyone thinking laterally. The perfect game for pretty much every scenario, including parties via Zoom!
Telestrations: If you’re a Pictionary household and you haven’t tried Telestrations, then the time has come my friends! This is an oldy by modern standards but most definitely a goody, regardless of whether you’re at all artistically inclined. The rules are effectively a mash-up between Pictionary and Chinese Whispers: everyone starts with a different clue and draws a picture representing it on the first page of their handy wipe-clean notebook. Notebooks are passed to the left, then everyone writes down what they think the picture they’re now looking at shows, without looking at the original clue. The next player draws a picture based on the description, and on it goes, with things reliably becoming increasingly muddled and hilarious as the game goes on. The final reveal where everyone gets to follow the original clue on its journey round the table is one of the most reliable ways to generate absolute howls of laughter, in our extensive experience!
