The pictures shown when you talked about "Alchemists" were actually of the game "Alchemist". Two pretty different games, and "Alchemists" is better IMO. Still quite complex, but solid game.
good call, my editor mixed up the two games (he hasn’t played either and finds the images himself), but i’m specifically talking about Alchemists with an S in the video
@@ProZD while you yell at your editor tell them to add time links and a list of items in videos which go through a list. it makes these videos much more enjoyable especially if you are only interested in a few items in said list.
@@YooranKujara I watched the whole video to see what he had to say about the games, but this is a really useful reference for me when I come back to this later.
@@Nocturne22 His “delivery” on that hardly sounded deliberate. Sung Won I’ve noticed is one to generalize on these sorts of things. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a joke, he’s just doing an unscripted video so won’t always be super tight on the terminology.
When I was a kid I remember flipping over the Candy Land board and drawing on the back with a white pencil to create a new board. We called it Negative Land, and it had things like Doom Crow, that made you lose a turn, or the Bridge of Marginal Progression that moved you ahead like two spaces. I think the end goal was to reach Batman.
I think the key thing about Candyland is that it's actually very good for what it is, but what it is is not so much a game as a way to teach kids HOW to play games. There's no strategy, so it's fine for kids who are very young, but it involves taking turns, following rules, and some people losing. All those things are critical for kids to learn to move on to real games, and your 2 year old can't engage with, say, Tokaido (a fantastic game) at nearly the level required to enjoy themself. I have played a lot of Candy Land, and sure, it's not strategically interesting, but it helped my kid learn to take turns, and just as importantly, to lose some.
That's how I always used it. It has all of the elements of a game (taking turns, winning and losing, minor setbacks) it gets kids to understand game procedure without being overwhelming.
This is an especially good list, thank you. 0:58 *Scrabble* 1:27 Paperback 2:16 Letter Tycoon 2:58 *Battleship* 3:12 Captain Sonar 4:43 *Clue* 5:18 The Search for Planet X 6:29 Alchemists 7:30 *Catan* 8:15 Bohnanza 9:00 *Cards Against Humanity* 9:18 Say Anything 9:50 *Risk* 10:13 Blood Rage 11:23 Zombicide Black Plague 12:10 *Monopoly* 12:52 Machi Koro 13:28 Space Base 14:58 *The Game of Life* 15:17 Tokaido 17:08 *Sorry!* 17:53 Can't Stop 19:29 *Candyland* 19:50 Camel Up
I prefer SmallWorld as a better version of Risk. Mostly strategic, but doesnt have the "winner keeps winning" problem as reroutibg strategy is a part of the game, and its done in 30 mins to an hour
Small world is great and I've enjoyed using it as a beginners foray into any sort of 'war game'. But Risk is always a classic and I love it. I also love more engaging Risk variations (Risk 2210 AD is probably my favorite). I feel like Risk's huge issue is the Monopoly issue where a lot of people don't actually know all the rules. Also, many folk I've played don't seem to realize there's only so many rounds in Risk before it's supposed to end and turns don't need to take ages but most people just overthink it all or, lastly, no one pulls the trigger on a game ending move (or game shifting move to drastically change the board state) because 'feels bad' to make someone have to drop out of the game.
It's true that in SmallWorld the winner doesn't necessarily use their advantage to keep winning, but also any advantage someone gets in the beginning makes them hard to surpass later on. It just hides the problem imo
@@hexagon_ Small World isn't just "hiding the problem." Yes, if someone gets an early advantage, other players will have to play riskier to surpass them... but it does not, _in addition_, give them a mechanical advantage. They don't get larger armies because they have more VP. Getting an early lead SHOULD make it easier to win. If it didn't, then it wouldn't matter. If early gains had NO effect on who's more likely to win in the later parts of the game, then it's not a "gain" at all. The difference is between "you have to play better to make up the difference" vs. "your agency is diminished, making it nigh-impossible to even keep pace, much less catch up, which compounds itself as the other player gets further and further into the lead."
You mentioned how lots of people have played Catan as their first foray into more advanced games. It would be cool to see a "10 board games to play now that you're into Catan" or something like that, and show some recommendations that are just a little more involved/challenging for the curious board-gamer :)
The problem with things like Say Anything is that most people just aren’t funny. Having the crutch of pre-determined phrases to choose from is essential when you aren’t creative enough on your own.
Shut Up and Sit Down recommended FunEmployed instead of CAH, and I think it's a better game - putting together a combination of cards gives you an opportunity to be witty yourself with enough of a crutch that you don't draw a blank, and having the communal card pool gives everyone more material to work with. Plus the conceit of going into an interview when you don't feel qualified is a really evocative and unusual setup.
Balderdash is usually a fun time, and you're more focused on trying to trick your friends than actually having to try and be funny. Typically, the funny moments happen when people go for absurdity.
Not a board game but still a fun party game is Quiplash, from some of the JackBox Collections video game series. Players are given two prompts to answer within 70 seconds or so, and after everyone has submitted their answers (or time runs out) the game will take those answers and display them to the room, everyone except the two players vote on which one they like the best and you can earn bonuses for things like taking the entire room or taking the majority, etc. It's pretty fun, and there's a no-filter option where you might get some adult-themed questions to answer, but otherwise it's pretty fun to play.
I think Bring Your Own Book manages to strike the perfect balance between player agency and picking from canned answers - the cards inside the box serve as the prompts, but you find your answers as snippets of books you own by flipping through the one in front of you. It’s a great way to make everyone feel somewhat clever in finding their answers while setting the level of family-friendliness you want via the book selection.
In my game group, Candy Land is used as an initiation ritual of sorts, where we show inductees how serious we take games by playing a game of it with the seriousness of a YuGiOh anime battle.
Candy Land doesn't even have any decision points. What are you supposed to be hype about? Might as well flip a deck of cards one by one and get excited about who flips the last one. There's no difference.
Candyland is hilarious because how brutally unfair the cards can be. Watching someone go from a few squares away from the castle all the way back to Plumpy is so beautiful.
I think I was 10 when I realized that some board games gave you no control over winning or losing. Candyland started to seem silly, and Snakes and Ladders was never the same.
A card game I would recommend for the "Cards Against Humanity" category: Someone has died. Basically someone has died and everyone has to convince the estate holder why they deserve the deceased's fortune with an improv story involving the identity, relationship with the deceased, and 2 backstory cards. It really tests your ability to tell a cohesive story. The game is kid friendly so no offensive cards but pure silliness. So tell me. Tell me why you deserve the Tulip collection of Mrs. Baker's who died by drowning in batter at her cupcake factory? Identity: A Talking Dog, Relationship: You killed their Iguana, Backstory: Hulk Hands Backstory: A life-sized cardboard cutout of the deceased. - All actual cards.
This sounds very similar to another game I love, Funemployed! You get 3 cards that are basically also backstory cards. The "judge" for that round is hiring for a position, you're at an interview, and you have to spin your cards to argue that you'd be the best one for the job. The judge also has one card per player in THEIR hand that they play during your pitch, just to throw a wrench in and test how quickly you can incorporate the new card and how well you can spin it for the job. Only downside is a lot of the cards are NSFW, so not a good game for kids.
Jumping in with yet another game in a similar vein: Snake Oil. The “judge” has a consumer role, like high school dropout, cowboy, dumpster diver, etc. and the other players have to combine two cards from their hand to make a product that they then have to pitch to the consumer. Also, a game still in development is Game Jam, a card game about designing video games. (This one is probably more easily explained with a show, not tell: th-cam.com/video/AjDLAoUM4YA/w-d-xo.html )
That's what got in my craw a tad... if you're not recommending me something my 3 year old could have played, I don't know what use you think this is. Not many people confused and playing Candy Land at 20 years old because they never thought something better existed
@@HelloQuaino I think the intention is that families with children who grew up with Candyland and want something new yet familiar. Similar enough to Candyland that the kids take to learning it quickly while still different enough from Candyland (aka actual choices to be made) so the parents aren't bored out of their minds just to entertain the children.
Sorta. Candyland actually has a fascinating history; it was something easy for kids who had polio and were in the iron lung could play easily. I'm not kidding, it's why in some older versions there's a boy with a leg brace on.
@@LeoMidori "play" is a bit of a stretch though. You don't do anything. It's just a movie made of cardboard and plastic. There are zero decisions to make. But since they were pretty much incapacitated while in the iron lung, it allowed them to use their imaginations that they were the ones on the trip through Candy Land.
So, the 'Dice Rolling' issue in Catan is actually something that the community and designers discovered and solved a long time ago. You can get a Dice Deck, which is just a stack of cards that has a 'shuffle deck' card somewhere near the bottom that perfectly replicates the distribution of resources tokens. It took me from loathing Catan to really enjoying it again. Highly recommended.
@@theindiefanclub It's random and over the course of the game doesn't necessarily reflect the probability distribution of the tiles. I've played whole games where like a 6 or and 8 is only rolled once, which can be very frustrating. Some people might like this, however, b/c it's fun to have a 3 or 4 tile, etc. rolled a bunch of times unexpectedly. To each their own.
@@byst33 Oh right, because there basically aren't enough rounds total in a game for the CLT to apply and ensure that the sampled rolls end up mirroring their distributions all that well? So then a dice deck solves that by ensuring that the distribution is perfectly followed, the trade-off then being that if you remember/count the numbers pulled you then can start to make better predictions about the numbers that will come in the future which is kind of offset by the fact that decisions about that stuff is way more important in the early game anyway? I personally do enjoy the randomness, since I usually play with groups with very mixed experience and it helps level the playing field and I guess I'm also a massive casual w/r/t boardgames. I guess if I played more and more intensely with a crowd who were experienced things might change. Thanks for clearing that up for me though!
@@byst33 Every few Catan games you get fucked by dice rolls, and you can also have a great game when you get perfect rolls. Because of how the human brain works most people will sooner forget the shit games and remember the good ones.
@@danil8663 Actually, that goes against common wisdom on human psychology. On other facets of life it’s the bad stuff one remembers. But it’s so true about board games. That one game where you killed it sticks with you and makes you want to play the game more even if you usually do poorly at it. I guess it’s the nature of games with more than two players where you expect to lose more than win just because math. So wins are more precious and memorable.
That's TH-cam for you. Actual talent and effort is no longer welcome. Just be a TV talk show or stream yourself doing something mundane for 20+ minutes.
I mean personally to me i love risk, i always liked the star wars clone wars version and played it a bunch of times. It can get long but honestly its a strategy game, its going to be long if you play it right
I don’t think I’ve ever actually finished a game of Monopoly before. Pretty much every time I played it as a kid it would be me playing with my brothers and cousins. The game would go on for hours until 3 people were left. One would basically own the entire board, another would be kind of well to do, and the last would be living off the $200 pass go money like a tick sucking an anemic moose, praying that they’ll get sent to jail so they can be safe for 3 turns. At that point, those who were left would just quit because everyone else that already got eliminated would be playing Xbox or watching a movie, and they no longer felt like playing Monopoly.
If you play Monopoly with good players, it becomes almost Risk level of strategic. There’s still a heavy element of randomization, but now the players are forming agreements, there are auctions that are heavily strategized, and people use any hint of weakness to try to leverage their superior cash for valuable properties. Anything less, though, and the game really sucks. It’s as random as Candy Land, 20 times as long, and just generally monotonous
@@benjaminlillis7807 And I know it's probably been beat to death at this point, but you gotta play without house rules. Any house rule that adds money to the game ($500 on free parking etc.) just prolongs the game. A lot of people who say they think monopoly takes too long are most likely playing with these house rules.
@@benjaminlillis7807 it's 1 hour, no more than 2 max if everyone knows how to play and no house rules and everyone is paying attention instead of f-ing off into another room somewhere when it's not their turn. If you are doing any of the above it will take longer, but then if you are doing that, then playing the game itself was never actually the point and it was just hanging out and having fun together
Thank you, I need this list as a reference lol. Planning on looking into a few of them like Machi Koro and Tokaido because I've seen them in shops around here.
On the vein of Clue, I really enjoy Mysterium. It has a similar guess mechanism to Clue, but it's semi-cooperative and one player takes on the role of the ghost of the victim and can only communicate via vague image cards.
Thanks for mentioning Mysterium - I'm gonna check it out! Problem I had with his suggestion to replace Clue was that it didn't have the murder mystery aspect that I love about Clue. Deduction isn't the same for me if it doesn't have that old timey classic Agatha Christie whodunnit aesthetic. Mysterium sounds great!
@@_elle If you can get a decent size of gamers going you should try Deception Murder in Hong Kong. You're solving a modern day murder with vague clues but one of you will be the murderer trying to throw everyone else off.
Mysterium is A+++ one of my favorite games. I haven't played it enough with the same group of people though to know if it has staying power. I could see it becoming predictable
One of my favorite who dunnit games takes place on spaceship. For this one you need 10 people or crewmates. There are 2 imposters who try and sabotage and kill to win. It’s called amog and is really fun!!!11!!
As a Cards Against Humanity or Apples to Apples replacement, I highly recommend Bring Your Own Book. Similar idea where you’re trying to give the best answer for a prompt based on the current judge, but you draw your responses from text in whatever book you have on hand. It avoids both the mindlessness of just picking the funniest cards and the stress of writing your own answers. The humor comes from taking things out of context, and it can be hilarious
The only thing that I've seen that seems to come close to the Apples to Apples style but still be interesting is the Bob Ross Happy Little Accidents game. Everyone draws a little squiggle that they pass to someone else. Then a card is flipped which says what you need to draw. You have to turn that squiggle into art in 30 seconds. Then everyone votes on the winner. Or you can play Codenames, Werewolf, or if you have six or fewer, Cash 'n Guns.
another game to replace Clue that keeps the same setting is Deception: Murder in Hong Kong! I grew up with Clue and Deception is easily my favorite board game. Planet X is fun but it doesn't scratch my itch for detective noire shit.
The game I replaced Clue is 13 Clues :) It's basicly Clue without dice rolling. Also everyone has their own case to solve, so even after one has solved his case, the others can guess :)
I just made this comment before seeing yours! I only got this game recently and my friends and I absolutely love it. We all play loads of hidden role games and this one has become a favourite!
Thank you for this! I love the detective-y nature of Clue plus the atmosphere of the old mansion etc. Space games aren't really my jam, so I will look into this one.
@@ih82r8 I'm glad I could help! The vibe for Deception isn't necessarily old mansion, but thankfully due to the open-ended nature of the murders themselves, you can choose to set that vibe yourself. It's tonally very open-ended. I hope you have fun!
I played "Hardcore" monopoly with a group of drinking buddies and it was messed up. No rules applied to anyone unless someone called it out, so you had to collect rent when someone landed on your space while the player who did is trying to get the next person to roll so they get to stay for free once the next turn starts. You can steal money or properties from other players when they are not paying attention, but if you get caught, you go to jail. Free parking means everyone rolls the dice and the lowest number has a tornado take out one of their houses. Railroads cannot be bought, but they can be ridden to the next stop for $100. Utility spaces are just like income tax spaces. and you had to read your community chest and chance cards out loud followed by "in bed". Idk why I even remember this many rules, but I'm sure there were some I was forgetting.
Going to jail is actually a good thing though lategame, the optimal strategy would be to get some property, and then to repeatedly break the rules to gain the benefit of going to jail (sitting out while others lose).
My family does a lot of wheeling and dealing that isn't in the rules but isn't expressly forbidden either: like for example, player A lands on a property that's up for sale but has no cash. Player B sidles up like, "I'll give you the money, and let you stay for free for the rest of the game, but I'll also collect all the rent." Or "I'll go halvsies with you" and then in the late game there's a bunch of buyouts and mergers
I really like Machi Koro, my biggest gripe with it is that you quickly figure out that there is a meta to it, once people catch onto that, the replayability dies quite fast
What is the meta for machi koro? Only played it once and really liked it and was planning to buy it in the future, so I'm just curious what the deal breaker is? 😮
@@Ray_Argues Maybe it's just that we're not experienced enough but cheese factories and stacking dairy cards was quite overpowered since the cheese factories gave money depending on the amount of dairy cards you had and activated on rolling a 7 which is the number with the biggest odds when playing with 2 6-sided dies. Also, playing with random cards available helps reduce the issue since you can't really force it anymore, it's just that everytime someone starts to pull of that build, it feels pointless. Still a great game I would recommend
@@dyskau8202 even though 7 is the most commonly rolled number, I feel like the vast majority of Machi Koro games I have played feature people rolling less common numbers A LOT (a common experience for anyone who has played CATAN). Every game I’ve played the cheese factories haven’t been very useful at all. I have the BRIGHT LIGHTS BIG CITY version of the game
@@__dane__ Well, odds are odds, not every game will match the odds. But I don't think I've ever lost with the cheese factory build on, rolling 7 once means buying the most expensive monument instantly and then it's over.
The only memory i have of candy land is in hs my mom burst into my room when she realized i was alone with my boyfriend up there and she was ready to bust some hanky panky but instead found us playing candy land on the floor. She slunk out of the room and left us alone feeling bad she thought we were up to no good, but after she left we proceeded to get up to no good and forget candy land lol
My replacements for Clue would have been “Awkward Guests” and “Chronicles of Crime” where you’re actually playing deduction murder mysteries rather than a deduction of another theme.
I like that you managed to distill the things that make these games enjoyable and made appropriate recommendations based on the feelings they inspire rather than, I don’t know, “theme” for example, like betrayal at house on the hill is not in the same category as clue despite the fact that they’re both macabre mansions that you explore room by room. Really good thought put into these answers and I look forward to playing the ones I haven’t yet that you mentioned
I still remember my brother insisting we play Monopoly over and over again when we were young college kids because he was determined to devise a winning strategy. After a solid week of Monopoly he looked at me in defeat and said, “It really IS just luck.” 😂😂 And let’s not forget the last game of Risk we played where our younger brother tied him up fighting to regain Alberta whilst I quietly conquered the globe. To this day when anyone mentions Risk, the three of us narrow our eyes and whisper, “Albertaaaaa.” 🤣 I sure do miss the days when I had people to play board games with. 😌
technically there is some strategy - but the majority of that is grabbing the properties that people are most likely to land on (there are a couple that are statistically much more likely) ... everything else really is just chance
Quiplash is a ton of fun, I highly recommend it as well. Same with Fibbage and Drawful, they're a similar concept but you're given a right answer and the players get to come up with all the wrong answers to trick each other.
Another good replacement that I have and play very regularly is the game 'Bucket of Doom', it has a similar premise with the whole 'question cards and answer cards' deal, but you have to be a lot more creative in the way you use them as props to your answer rather than just your answer on their own.
Would also strongly recommend Joking Hazard made by the same people that make the comic Cyanide and Happiness. It's *so* much fun and way less repetitive than CAH.
Another game I would recommend if you like Clue is a little game called “Dracula’s Feast: New Blood”. It’s not as complex as “The Search for Planet X”, but it scratches that itch of asking other players questions to deduce something. In this case, you are trying to figure out who everyone is, and you can do that by asking yes/no questions, asking to “dance”, and just paying attention to what others are asking. It’s a fun light deduction party game, so check it out if you haven’t 🙂
Murder: Deception in Hong Kong is another good replacement for Clue. Someone has to be the caller and it's better with more people, but it really hits that who-dun-it process. For Monopoly I would have said Stockpile, it really hits that capitalism/property not and it's a great game. Last instead of Camel Up, Full Throttle goes one step further and has the Candyland random deck of moves but players bet during the game which removes those cards. Great list just wanted to add some alternatives.
When I was little and my little sister wanted to play, I'd distract her while I stacked the deck so I'd get the Queen Frostine card because 1) I'd win early and 2) I really liked the picture of her.
It isn't though. One tweak I've heard that at least makes it slightly less mind numbing is to draw two cards. That way you can at least show your children very basic math and strategy.
"Acquire" is a great replacement for Monopoly. It has money management strategies for early mid and late game (because you can run out if you're not careful) and replaces property management with stock management. There are no dice so randomness is minimal and each turn you MUST place a square on the grid. Once the grid is full, the game is over, so the playtime is finite with a clean satisfying ending.
ugh, i hated acquire! i played the whole game thinking the goal was to build a successful hotel… when in actuality the way to succeed is to deliberately make things fail and buy lots and lots of stocks ("eruption" is another game where the winning strategy is the opposite of what you might think to do in reality: you're _supposed_ to protect your village from a volcano… but since you get bonus cards and actions (and additional volcano source tiles!) by crossing "heat" thresholds, it's often better to start the game by forcing your own village to get as hot as quickly as possible, hold onto any "rain" cards you draw, and blow them all in the last turn of the game)
@@soupalex another fun game that has a kinda weird, opposite type strategy is Village. In it, you need to score by getting your villagers to die in certain areas instead of letting them die and be buried in unmarked graves. So it's a game that you actually want to force your family to die very quickly so you can fill up more of the village chronicle
@@cliffritch7304 sounds like "gloom" (although the fluff for that actually agrees with the mechanics: you're _supposed_ to win by making your family miserable and killing them; in contrast, e.g. acquire is supposedly about building a successful business (or businesses), but the mechanics actually reward you for torpedo-ing them (this could be read as a satire of capitalism and the way bosses are rewarded with "golden parachutes" even when they completely fuck everything up, but i don't think this was intentional)
@@soupalex Sounds like someone may not have explained Acquire to you very well. The goal is purely to get filthy rich. The strategy is interesting because as you mentioned, you get money off of failed hotels you have invested in, but you also get a big payout at the end of the game if you are a majority shareholder in one of the inevitable super chains that actually survives. The whole thing is about balancing your priorities between short term profits and long term profits (and recognizing which stocks are short term vs long term investments). The game can definitely be a bit frustrating and unintuitive at times, and believe me I've felt that, but at the end of the day I would have to call it a good strategy game.
Monopoly isn't fun because it's overplayed. It's the "idiot" of board games go to game. The person who knows nothin or doesn't care about board games but still want to say "hey I play board games sometimes"
I will say that some of the themed versions of risk are much, much more fun than the basic game. Risk 2210 in particular had a lot of interesting additions and fun mechanics that could swing the game, so the dice weren't the only thing that ran the show.
_I think if anyone wants to play Risk, I'd be suggesting Small Worlds. It's a lot quicker, a fantasty elements, and a randomised race and power feature that make it really fun to replay each time._
All the Risk variants I've played have also been much faster games than the original. Many get into the 1hr mark, instead of all day like the base Risk. Risk Legacy also changes every time you play it, which is fun if you have a recurring group to play with.
@@ericscherbarth1817 yeah they do seem to add a turn cap or some other mechanic to reign it in a bit, which tells me they absolutely know that the "total domination" win condition from the core game just wasn't a good call 😆
@@ericscherbarth1817 I've never had a base game Risk take all day unless we purposefully wanted a long game. There's a round limit in Risk and it feels like most people don't seem to grasp that or forget. Seems to be some level of Monopoly effect where house rules are ingraned into people's psyche but aren't official and arbitrarily make games harder or longer than than they need to be XD Or people just don't make the game winning move lest they make a friend feel bad for being dropped out of the game. But Risk variants are often better due to being more engaging as they give defenders things to do as well BESIDES rolling defense dice and have ways to fortify their key positions. To the OP, I do like Small World and makes a great entry 'war game' but it fundamentally IS just Risk Lite and doesn't scratch my itch as much and while the random races/trait feature can be fun, there really are just some God awful ones that make your time with them feel horrid and you WANT to die instantly to redraw a combo or some are just so damn good they give a massive advantage for a long period of time compared. It's a fine little game but not without flaws of it's own.
It definitely does, but the name undersells how good the game is. I've never been able to play it with more than 4 people total (and turn-by-turn not realtime mode) but even then it's a blast
@@RaidsEpicly you haaaaavvvee to play it real time; I feel like turn based just doesn't capture the spirit of the game which is crazy chaotic attempts at cooperation. Also, I feel like 3v3 is the best number of players for it since the First Mate role is hardly a role. So hopefully you can find another 2 friends to play it with you sometime :)
Whenever I think of a "better Clue", my mind goes to Mysterium. On its core it's still a "solve the crime" type of game, but the way it delivers clues to the players is really unique. It is also coop, which is I guess a twist on the genre in some way. I really love the game, and I always recommend it whenever I have the chance. I yet have to play it on higher difficulty setups, though!
I always liked Mystery of the Abbey. Mechanics are very Clue-like in that everyone has a hand of cards to eliminate suspects, but instead of roll-and-move, you can move up to 2 spaces with your monk. If you encounter another players piece, you get to ask them any question that does not require a name as an answer. They can choose to take a "vow of silence" and not answer, or answer your question, but then get to ask you a question in return which you must answer. Everyone hears this, so information can get around the table a bit faster, depending on the questions. After a few rounds, everyone assembles for "Mass" and some number of cards are passed to the left by each player, which also helps info get around. There are different locations of the abbey which can give players cards with special abilities or let them take cards from other players, and there's one room where you go to make assertions about the murderer, or a final accusation. Each card has a monk with a different combination of aspects (fat/thin, bald/hooded, bearded/shaven, Novice/Brother/Father, Franciscan/Templar/Benedictine). At the end of the game for every correct assertion you get 2 points, but lose 1 for each wrong one. If you correctly identified the murderer, you get 4 points, but lose 2 if you guessed wrong. The scoring method means that the person who correctly identifies the murderer may not actually win the game. Although in my experience, you usually get two or three players who identify the murderer on the same turn, who are then rushing to that room on the last turn trying to be the first one to accuse. Still a fun game, IMO. Too bad it's out of print, which is why I am sure it was not mentioned in this video.
We played Kill Doctor Lucky, Clue, and Mysterium as a three part campaign once. First, the murder, second, the whodunit, third is Dr. Lucky/Mr. Boddy communicating from beyond the grave.
For me it's Deception that replaces Clue. It's kinda like Mysterium meets Codenames meets Clue: you're solving a murder by interpreting and deducing the word clues the scientist gives you
I'm surprised he didn't mention the Game of the Goose. It's historically been pretty popular where I live, but you could literally randomize a series of inputs with a computer and decide the winner in less than a second.
Game pf the goose is pretty popular in germany netherlands area of europe It is so terrible that my brother and i came up with a goosedeath variant where every square that doesnt contain a number kills you instantly except the one where you would normally die and you win when you get on that square which is 37 if I remember correctly but its a rough estimate The game is so hard to win that we have only won 4 or 5 times over around 6 years of playing on average once per week But i always joked that game of the goose is better than monopoly because it doesn’t last as long and is just as (un)fun
When people want to play Risk, I suggest Root. You can still pick factions that involve building up armies to control territories, but the variety of factions adds so many different approaches to winning. Battles are dice-based, but the way the game is structured, your tactical use of combat is a much bigger factor than your rolls
@MumrikDK it’s a good thing if your playgroup never gets comfortable with root. It really loses its charm once you understand all the rules/factions - because you’ll understand that it’s fundamentally unbalanced and not very deep. But the ride to get there is soooooo fun.
@@jakeporch4236 I'm not sure, sorry! To be honest, I've reached "that point" and I'm still really enjoying it. I said it loses its charm earlier but that's not really true, it just never ends up feeling like a war game. Root makes that promise of giving you the war game experience but once you learn all the rules it's just a laid back role playing game.
I hate Catan. It's not terrible but it is sort of gamer cancer. when a group of people uses it as their gateway to more interesting games they get stuck on it like for some reason society gets stuck watching reruns of friends or the office or something. and there's so many games that do what it does without being badly broken. The badly broken thing about Catan is you can get hosed in your first couple turns and be stuck in the game with no chance of winning. so now you have 40 minutes to an hour to kill with no hope in the game system. So you either check out or king-make or troll. The game isn't fun for you and there's a pretty good chance you're making the game less fun for everybody else. We shouldn't play Catan.
@@GunFunZS How dare you diss The Office! It wasn’t always great, and like 3-4 of its seasons sorta sucked, but it wasn’t a gateway to better things, it was innovative. There’s only like one other successful show with its format, and granted Parks and Rec is probably better, but come on
@@benjaminlillis7807 it's painfully cringy. Further just every single episode does not seem plausible that anybody could keep their job and do that nonsense. And also I really really don't like infidelity. But I'm supposed to ship a romance of somebody who's cheating on her fiance effectively is not charming it's really unappealing. So yeah I will diss the office. Everything the first few seasons got right was a lower grade rip off of the British version. The same criticisms apply to the British version but kind of more so.
@@GunFunZS That’s not true. The American Office was a deviation from the UK Office because it was much less mean spirited, and had a more American style of humor. Whether that’s a good thing is up to your interpretation: I think it works better in this context. It’s making fun of the jobs that working class Americans participate in, so it’s inevitably going to heighten certain scenarios and become a bit unreal for satirical purposes. This becomes worse and worse as the show goes on, hence why I said that about half the show was not worth watching. The relationship between Jim and Pam is of course one that involves cheating. But Roy is shown to be overly controlling, and more than a bit abusive. Pam rushed into this relationship straight out of high school, not even getting a college degree. She committed to a person who was unable to handle it at an age where she was too young to do anything about it, and she was scared of leaving him because of his controlling presence, and because of her lack of experience in the world outside of her relationship that made her want to leave. And anyway, for all this justification I’ve given, this is a show that always portrayed Jim as just a bit of a jerk, especially in the beginning of the show, and Pam was willing to spend her life with someone she really didn’t like before he came along. While the show may have portrayed this up front as some great romance, I think if you read between the lines a bit you’ll see that this relationship really shouldn’t have had the tools for success, and it was only through their development as characters that they didn’t enter a similar situation to Pam and Roy. As for what you said about the show being painfully cringy, well yeah, that’s sort of the point. There are entire episodes dedicated to that, like Scott’s Tots. Some of the most critically acclaimed episodes of the series, such as Dinner Party, are also the most cringe-inducing. Ultimately, that’s just a matter of preference. Also, if you don’t like a particular style of comedy and you watch an entire sitcom built around said style of comedy, you’re not going to enjoy it. It’s like if you watch Community, my personal favorite sitcom, and hate meta humor. You’re going to think that the show is pretentious and annoying.
@@benjaminlillis7807 yeah that's exactly what every romantic comedy does when they set up woman cheating on her boyfriend or husband to get the protagonist. It's super immoral and everyone should be uncomfortable with it. so they always build a bunch of flaws into the guy they're cheating on so you say I guess it's okay because later we find out he has some flaw. It's exactly as a reasonable as to say that it's fine for me too rob that guy in the back alley because later it turns out he's a racist. It isn't just crappy it's also so predictable because they write exactly that arc every time they need to justify getting you to buy in to really crappy behavior. And I hate training the rest of the world to think like that. I don't think the show is brilliant, it's always been uncomfortable for me to be around. I realized that people enjoy awkwardness but I am not one of them. It's fine for you to enjoy awkwardness and embarrassing. But come on there have been so many other bits of production and show that are worthy of giving your time to or books or anything why rewatch something that's at best a pretty mediocre compromise.
"Game of Things" is also a good replacement for CAH, it's the same as "Say Anything" except it's pencil and paper. The ultimate way to go is to just play Quiplash on the Jackbox app, super simple, just need a phone. Scratches all the same itches.
A replacement for Catan: Raccoon Tycoon. The fun of gathering resources, but you get to choose your resources rather than rely on a dice roll. Plus, the values of the resources fluctuate throughout the game base on choices made by the players. The art is also super well done and adorable.
the thing that makes monopoly take so long, is that everyone ignores the auction mechanic. i think if you actually use the auction rule, it probably would only run about 60 mins like the box says.
It does - I played once with my niece and used it, and the properties get sold quickly, just a couple runs around the board. Removing the "Free Parking" lottery house rule also helps a lot, because that's just a catch-up mechanic that just keeps people in the game long after they should have lost.
@@KingBobXVI Yeah, that's exactly it. In general, any "house rules" that serve to give people more money just end up prolonging the game (even though it feels good in the moment when you get that money). The game can't end until everyone except the winner gets out; the more money floating around makes it take longer to get to that point. But that's also another big problem with monopoly; that you get out and then you just go do something else while other people keep playing. Rather than the goal being to bankrupt your opponents, I think it would be better if the goal were, like, first person to get $50,000 or whatever wins (It's been a while since I've played Monopoly, so I don't know what amount would actually be reasonable).
Bruh who tf doesn't use the auction mechanic? It's impossible to end the game if you dont use it, like not long just forever , you actually won't be able to finish it because people would make more money from the new round then they will pay to others
For risk I would suggest SmallWorld. It’s the same kind of thing, troops moving around a map and battling each other, but it feels so much less random and so much more strategic.
Axis & Allies is alright, but it’s still wayyyy too reliant on dice. If you like that, check out Ikusa (aka Samurai Sword/Shogun I think) Small World is fantastic tho
You’re criticism of scrabble while totally valid is one of my favourite features. It allows for different strategies. E.g. my wife and I play a lot and while she is playing the letters looking for high scoring long words, I play the board looking for bonuses, blocking and extending words. We both score high and it’s a balanced challenge
@@mmm-mmm Late but - you do get a bonus, but only if you use all seven tiles in your hand (or if you play with nine tiles, then using seven, eight or nine qualifies for the bonus). The bonus is fifty points. Not the easiest thing to pull off due to some luck factors, but certainly not impossible and usually worth it.
As an adult if you have played Camel Up you will understand why its a kid game, even with a basic understanding of statistics the game is impossible to predict due to the sheer number of outcomes, and even though there is some strategy, the winner feels as though they are always determined by luck. It is a fun game for the first or second time as an adult and then after that it is unbearable, it is one of the few board games I have given away because I will never play willingly again, much like apples to apples or cards against humanity. If you do play the game don't waste mental energy trying to strategize, just do what makes the least sense and you will probably have more fun.
I think the one issue with some of these choices is that they're too complicated for a lot of the people who play some of these classic ones. They're more interesting because their depth/skill ceiling is higher, but the skill floor is also higher as a result.
Not all of them though. Beananza takes a little bit less time to explain (have you tried explaining how to build roads/cities in Catan lately?), and if you had to teach an alien Space Base or Monopoly, I would choose monopoly every time. Did you sit down and learn all of the rules of Monopoly at once, like auctioning unbought properties, or mortgaging?
@@ChiefBlueScreen I googled the two rules of Monopoly there that I didn't understand and it took me a grand total of 1 minute to update my knowledge. Maybe if I tried Space Base I'd find it really easy to understand too, but hearing the explanations of these games from him, it says a lot that he takes a minute or so to explain Battleship, and then 3 to explain Captain Sonar in a rough degree. This didn't apply to all of his alternate picks, but several of them I also felt sounded too complicated to be all that fun. But, then again, I like Monopoly.
@@Nekufan1000000 The clever thing about Captain Sonar is that each role is quite simple. So it doesn't take long for each player to learn what they need to be doing, and then you don't need to know the other 3 sets of rules to play. In fact, it adds to the flavor and fun to not have any idea what's going on with the engineer while you're just trying to chart the enemy submarine and suddenly your reactor breaks down. and everyone's yelling at the engineer.
Oh no, people might have to actually _learn something new!_ How horrible that they may be taken out of their comfort zone for a little while they learn a new, more complex game!
@@Lumber_jocks No, that's literally how it works at competitions. IIRC, you only have a limited number of callouts, and since the English language isn't exactly consistent, it's perfectly possible to bluff a word that doesn't exist. You only don't get points for it if your opponent calls you out successfully. There's also penalties for calling out a word that turns out to be real. So, yeah, at high-level Scrabble tournaments, making up words is a completely viable tactic.
As someone in a group of friends who collectively own over 1k board games, it's nice to see a few familiar games. Though after a brief glance through comments, I haven't seen anyone mention Small World as an alternative to RISK. It's a really awesome game that still gives you that feel of commanding armies, but it's on a much smaller scale and has a lot more strategy involved due to the way the powers of races and modifiers work.
I just started my kids on simple adult games. They play kids games together, and it took some time but now they are 7, 9 and 11, and can play D&D, X-Wing, Heroscape, Imperial Assault, and Arcadia Quest. I overheard them talking about Legend of Zelda lore, and other times arguing Pokemon rules and tossed out any notions of needing simplicity.
Yeah I think people really underestimate how complicated a kids knowledge can get. Trying to hear 11 year olds explain Fortnite makes my head spin, I just don't get it haha. You've just got to be careful because what kids are actually often pretty bad at is sticking with something they don't get. If they don't like it, they'll probably want to quit. You've got to be willing to put in a bit more work than with an adult but that's not bad at all.
As a replacement for Clue, my friends and I have really enjoyed Cryptid! It's still a deduction game, but each person has a clue to where the treasure is on a map. Your goal is to figure out everyone's clue that leads to this specific spot on the map where the treasure is. There's also an advanced mode if your friends are big brained and need a bigger challenge. Highly recommend!!
Yeah, that definitely adds a bit of planning to it, and removes the frustration in waiting a billion years for a fucking 1 or 2 to actually start doing *anything* and waiting for a second one to actually have some sort of strategic decision.
I used to love playing clue way back when, but nowadays, my go to game in that style has become Mysterium. Granted, its a lot less heady, but the way it incorperates the Dixit type illustrations is such a fun execution of the concept of psychics recieving visions, and the whole thing has exquisit vibes
The purpose of Candyland is to teach kids board game mechanics like drawing cards and moving tokens along a board and the concept of winning and losing, as well as social skills like learning how to take turns and how to accept winning and losing at a game. You are deliberately removing any kind of strategy aspects to focus purely on mechanics and social skills that young children haven't learned yet. If Candyland were actually a game that involved any strategy whatsoever, that would completely defeat the purpose of Candyland. The kid would just lose every single game, get frustrated not understanding "what they're doing wrong" and never actually learn.
His point isn’t that the game is bad for kids, his point is that as an adult, if you want the same feel but with a bit for fun, you should play the other games he recommends. In some ways, what he recommended also is better for kids once they reach a certain age.
At the same time, it's basically not even a game. As it could feasibly play itself. I think you are right that its a good tool to teach the *procedure* of playing a board game, but I think people who think that it can capture the full joy of a board game experience are the kind of people who think all games are only for children.
Pretty sure you can get any cooperative game (that's not too complicated) and it'll work better than candy land. If the kid gets stuck, then you can go over and help them. Now they learn everything candy land can give AND how to play other games in general
Risk is a game that I always wanted to play as a kid, but nobody ever wanted to play it with me. I think the reason I kept on loving it is because I never got to play it enough to get sick of it 🤣
The issues I have with replacing Clue this way, is that I find the fun of Clue is in the detective-who-dunnit narrative as well as the detection vs wild speculation strategy. The question being just how few clues do I need to see and still win. I could see why someone who's into logic puzzles would be disappointed by Clue, but there's the aspect of psychology to it as well.
Try Cryptid, Basically Clue with no moving. Lots of scenarios that gives lots of replayability with some more possibilities that clues can cover (as well as advanced scenarios that include negative "Can not be" clues). One clue per player and placing blocks on the hex-based map means you can try to bluff or hide your clue for as long as possible while deducing the answer from your opponents. For lore, it's basically natural investigators looking for a cryptid. Kinda like Bigfoot of something, but you need to find out where it lives.
I also like Clue's theme, but Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective achieves something similar while being the vastly better game, in my opinion. It's thematic, requires intuition and deduction, and is cooperative. Only issue is it's out of print and only has a limited number of cases...
You can also just play clue with no movement, and it's a substantially better game. On your turn, you can either 1) go to a room or 2) make a suggestion / accusation in the room you are in via the usual rules (still moving the accused to your room).
You could try Clue FX. It’s computerized and It has rooms and locations, but you can jump to any of them on your turn, and you learn clues from people you encounter at those locations. So of these characters are constantly moving around the board, but you only know where they are or where they’re going if you’re on that space. Adds a ton of randomness, and takes out all the rolling crap. WAY better game.
One game I have found similar to Tokaido is Patchwork, where the concept of “you take turns until you’re ahead” still applies, but the players are collecting little Tetris pieces to try and completely fill their own 9x9 board, and usually the bigger or more versatile a piece is, it sends you farther forward. Both great games, this one just seems simpler, though still fairly difficult to stay two steps ahead. There’s also some whole elements I haven’t talked about, so go look it up if anyone’s interested.
Another risk replacement is Small World. You pick different special power and fantasy race (elves, dwarves, giants, orcs, etc.) combinations and try to conquer the land. Very fun
Fun fact about monopoly: The reason why you don't find it fun might be it's intentionally designed not to. The inventor of monopoly was completely against capitalism and tried to educate the public through monopoly how bonkers, unfair and un-fun capitalism is for those on the losing side. Ironically, the people liked the gambling aspect and thrill of ripping your family's and friends' money off in a never ending circle until everyone basically is homeless while you have all the money in the world.
@Dylan Turner People like to be jerks. There's no thrill or fun in harmony. :/ There's a reason there aren't any movies where everything is just fine from beginning to end.
Yeah, and if you did even the barest of research called "looking at Wikipedia", you'd realize it wasn't anti-capitalism, it was anti-monopolization, which, you know, right in the name and all.
@@thewanderingmistnull2451 It is about capitalism. Monopolies are simply a symptom of that. No need to be rude, especially when you're not even adding anything to the conversation.
@@Leon_der_Luftige Monopolies are a problem no matter what economic system they arise in. Communism is basically making EVERY industry into a monopoly run by the state. And it was devastating for the people.
A game my friends and I have really liked a lot for quite some time now is King of Tokyo. It’s kinda like strategic Yahtzee with a Godzilla theme. Obv a lot of dice rolling but the outcomes allow you to take a lot of different approaches to winning. It’s also one of those game that the more you play it the more you can start to implement your own rules to make it more strategic. Big recommend from me 👍
Saying "if you like battleship, try Captain Sonar" is like saying "if you like playing catch with your friend, you should try setting up a local football league". It might be true, but there are a lot more rules, time, and people involved for that to be a real replacement.
Another deduction game along the lines of clue, but without the rolling of dice, is Cryptid. Very fun if you like the pure competitive deduction aspect of clue, although the deductive puzzles are generally much harder than clue so it’s not as good for casual audiences.
You talked me into Blood Rage and Tokaido, they sound right up my alley. Another great alternative to Apples to Apples/CAH style games is Dixit. It’s one of my favorite tabletop games ever. No matter who I introduce it in my family or circle of friends, they always end up loving it and the expansions almost double as collectibles because of the beautiful art.
I've heard good things about Blood Rage but never played it, but I can confirm that Tokaido is a GREAT GoL replacement. Much like Life, you'll blow through almost all of the content in one playthrough, but that's not really what it's about. It's about having a nice journey, and I do quite consistently each time it's busted out.
1000% agree on Dixit as an Apples to Apples/CAH style game. Personally what I like about it is that it manages to remove the arbitrariness of the judge (where one person gets to capriciously decide which card wins each round) while retaining fact that there's no mechanically "correct" play since correctness relies on aesthetic/narrative sense. It really retains the creativeness/cleverness/humanness of the genre while feeling much less arbitrary.
Dixit has become one of the games that is always in the game bag. Everybody who tries it loves it. Everyone loves to gaze at the art on the cards. A truly relaxing and delightful game.
I love Dixit! The friends who introduced me to it said they had a friend who was an engineer who hated it because of the abstraction aspect. He was never on the same page as anyone else.
For clue I reccomend Paranormal investigators. I player is a murder victim, and rhe other player's ask the ghost questions about the murder using cards, depending on what card an investigator uses determine's how the ghost player tells them the answer. Answers come in the form of drawing on the investigator's back, using a charts, sculpting a pipe cleaner, charades.
@@1st23st4u in mysterium the ghost gives answers by giving the investogators cards with abstract art that points to the correct answer. So although the premise is the same the way the game works is different.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. Monopoly is my favorite board game because of the trading and how much understanding the statistical probabilities of the game both improves your play and expierience. Yes there is a lot of luck with it but omg this comment hurts my soul more than the fact that ProZD doesn't like it and says it boils down to luck. ;(
It's not a board game, but I find fortune street to be a good alternative to monopoly. The addition of junctions, stock mechanics, and a dollar amount win has made it tons of fun for me who finds monopoly a little boring and it's been a lot easier for me to convince friends to play that type of game
@@Silvia.Sparks imo monopoly is still a mediocre game because of the luck and how long it takes. Even if you play with people that are somewhat competent and take it seriously it's just not that fun/interesting of a game compared to many others. Also many, many other games require as much or more statistical understanding, so it's not like that's something unique to monopoly. But hey, to each their own
@@Silvia.Sparks there is almost no skill in Monopoly. It's a roll and move that has basically no meaningful decisions. I'm not a board game snob by any means, but Monopoly has almost no redeeming qualities and was just created to amplify a lot of the issues with capitalism. Monopoly might be the only game that I would refuse to play if someone asked
@@alex8480 Well yeah Monopoly was LITERALLY created to demonstrate the inherent unfairness in concentration of wealth/land ownership, and how it inevitably snowballs. The _entire point_ is that skill & strategy are only superficial compared to a lucky start, and ultimately futile after someone's pulled ahead. The original version could be played with an optional tax rule to show players how certain tax schemes can help mitigate the unfairness.
Cards against humanity's quality is entirely dependent on the people who play it. If you have the same 10 jokes every game, it's because your group can only tell 10 jokes. Now, one can argue that that is what makes it a bad game, that you need an end goal and a path to that end in order for a "board game" to be good.
@@cameronphenix2096 I've played it with plenty of different groups, there's just only so many cards (even with the expansions) and not all that many combinations for a given black card that are funny and make sense. Even the expansion cards all lean very hard specifically towards edgy shock humor, which stops being edgy or shocking when it's half of the submitted answers most rounds.
@@Iamonepercent statistics says no but if you know how to manipulate the dice.. then yes. Also if you have badly weighted dice that can also affect the chances.
Another alternative to playing Clue, which I found to be very fun, is just playing clue without the board. I was playing with some friends, and we didn’t have enough space to set up the board for the game, so we just played with the cards and it was way more fun, in my opinion.
You're not the only one. There's an official card based version of the game that works in that manner. It does have slightly tweaked rules, IIRC, but it plays like clue, but without the tedium of needing to move from room to room to collect the evidence.
A game I really enjoyed as an alternative to Risk (back when I was still living at home and had people to play board games with lol) is Smallworld. You basically pick from a pool of randomly drawn factions that get combined with randomly drawn attributes that both give you different amounts of tokens to play with and different special abilities, and then race to populate/conquer a (as the name would imply) very small map. As the turns progress you also have the option to abandon your faction to pick a new one on your next turn, so you always have to look out which new faction/attribute combinations are up for grabs and weigh whether it's worth to abandon your current one (you spend a turn and become very vulnerable to attack in exchange for the chance to go for a big sweeping move with your fresh new faction, which also may have a better set of special abilities than your current one). It's very fast-paced bc your factions' manpower doesn't last very long so after 2-3 turns switching becomes very appealing, it's a lot less drawn out and stall-y than Risk can be. The actual combat has no random element at all which I like a lot, and seeing the funky combinations and what they can do makes it very replayable.
With guess who, I would personally suggest either Codenames if you just like doing subtle mind game deduction (the duet version is great if you don't want it to be too competitive), or if you're looking for something a little more "meaty" then Decrypto is wonderful and plays really well with multiple people. Hungry hungry hippos cannot be topped, maybe with the sole exception of Loopin Louie
For younger kids, Rat-A-Tat Cat is a memory game with a whiff of deduction/bluffing that might give you the Guess Who feel. As was also said, Loopin Louie, if you can find one, is amazing. But! They made a Loopin Chewie a few years ago that you can still find sometimes second hand. It's only three players, but if you have access to a 3D printer and Thingiverse, there's a part you can print for the base that lets' you fit a second set of "arms" and play 6 player. Search for it. To scratch the dexterity itch, you could try Crokinole (expensive), or Flick 'Em Up.
@@kendromeda42 Good suggestions. Codenames also has Disney, Harry Potter, and I think Marvel versions if you've got young people who like those things. Cryptid is a VERY thinky buy super cool deduction. Probably not for kids.
A good Risk replacement is “Diplomacy”. It requires cooperation from other players to overtake a country and it can be scaled to take a very long time to play the game or a much shorter game.
Yes, I played an online version with gaming friends, with EU and US time zones, so we made rounds 24h (or until everyone finished) and messaged and schemed with each other inbetween. A game could last a week or more and it was great fun :D
@Cameron Sprouse It depends. Diplomacy is a good killer of friendships, and it can take sooo much time to complete a game. Also draws are possible and easy when you know the board. So I'm not sure I would call it "fun".
Very good shoutout! Also good alternative is Game of Thrones. Very similar game to Diplomacy with a bit more mechanics and there's the GoT theme, if you're into that.
I had my International Politics students play Diplomacy. A couple quotes I overheard (I was basically GMing): “This game is the most stressful thing I’ve ever done in my life.” But also, “A bunch of the things we learned in History classes are starting to make a lot more sense now.”
Another suggestion for "The Game of Life" is "The Pursuit of Happiness." Similar feel of "look how cool my character's life was" just not random roll and move. More strategy involved.
My favourite alternative to Risk is another good ol' classic: Cosmic Encounter! It has a very similar feel to the conquering and alliance mechanics on Risk, but has a larger emphasis on negotiation and card management, instead of just rolling for each match. It also has cards and characters that completely bend the rules of the game and make every single match unique
I think the best direct alternative to risk is axis and Allies. Most acts are not based on chance and the Factions (at least for the 1942 version) are masterfully balanced. Only combat is balanced on chance and they pull off a good balance of randomness. The only problem is it is even longer than risk.
Yeah, Axis and Allies is a great game if you and your friends have a lot of free time. My brother and I once played a week long game that only ended because our cat used the nuclear option and knocked over all our pieces.
As a teen, my friends and I were into Axis and Allies. I have to disagree with your assessment of its balance, though, unless something in the gameplay has changed in the past 30 years. The game starts at the high point of expansion for the Axis. And unless the Axis play incredibly smart AND the Allies play incredibly bad, then the Axis will be crushed by the Allies’ production might, just like in real life. I’ve never been involved in a game that the Axis won.
Other recommendations: 10. Scrabble - Rummikub, Bananagrams, or Sequence 9. Battleship - Love Letter, or Star Realms 8. Clue - Mysterium, Cryptid, or Tobago 7. Catan - 7 Wonders 6. Cards Against Humanity - Utter Nonsense 5. Risk - Small World, or Champions of Midgard 4. Monopoly - Century, or King of Tokyo 3. Game of Life - Splendor 2. Sorry - Survive: Escape from Atlantis! 1. Candyland - Fearsome Floors
Very late to this, but so happy to hear you mention Tokaido! It’s my favorite game, was just playing it with family around Christmas. The best thing about Tokaido is no matter who wins, everybody can get different achievements, which feels good imo.
As another replacement for life I can recommend Pursuit of Happiness. A worker placement where you make choices in life. Do I pursuit a career, start a family? Or life healthy and het some extra turns because other players die earlier than me.
The Pursuit of Happiness is almost beat for beat a grown-up, well-designed version of Life. I would recommend it to anyone, it's one of my favourite all-time games. (Tokaido is also an incredible choice!)
old video but hopefully you still see comments - I'd really love a list of top games that are quick to pick up and get going; simple rules, quick to set up, etc. I really like playing games, but I have no patience anymore for spending a bunch of time going over complex rules to figure them out initially, and it's a real pain to have to redo that every time you want to play with a new friend. Games that have straightforward or intuitive rules and don't require a lot of setup time with a bunch of pieces are very appealing for this reason, but you can only play Apples to Apples so many times. Being exposed to new games like this would be awesome, and unlike most of my board game fanatic friends, you seem good about acknowledging when games are maybe too complex/hardcore to be more widely accessible to people who maybe aren't really into board games.
I honestly never understood why people like Catan so much. It's okay, but the whole rolling dice to get resources and bricks being really hard to get really makes the game feel poorly designed. I'm really glad you had the courage to point this out.
Same! I think that if you don't have the sentimental feelings of it being your first "real" boardgame, it's pretty obvious that it's not that great. Sure compared to Monopoly or something like that it's amazing but against the newer stuff it's hopeless.
I think the best alternative to CAH for playgroups that still want that element of "cards with humor on them" is Custom CAH, for me. There are websites for playing CAH online, and I have a great time sitting down with friends to custom build a deck with all our ideas for cards, because that personal element really makes the gameplay shine. You can make in jokes, poke fun at very specific things (or aspects of your fellow players, if that's the type of group you're in), and make references that would never be in a commercially sold game. Quiplash on the Jackbox Party Packs is still generally better for this, but "custom CAH decks online" are free and Quiplash isn't, so it's an option.
You hit "There's two games I can reccomend you" in the Monopoly section and I went "So help me god if one of these isn't Machi Koro..." and then you immediately said it, shutting me down preemptively. I laughed pretty hard, thank you.
![PASULOL รามเกียรติ์ ตอนที่ 4 นนทกพบรัก [Ramakien Ep.4: Nonthok in love]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tMUQgmZzf_A/mqdefault.jpg)
The pictures shown when you talked about "Alchemists" were actually of the game "Alchemist". Two pretty different games, and "Alchemists" is better IMO. Still quite complex, but solid game.
good call, my editor mixed up the two games (he hasn’t played either and finds the images himself), but i’m specifically talking about Alchemists with an S in the video
@@ProZD still love the suggestion video though. Thanks for making this!
@@ProZD while you yell at your editor tell them to add time links and a list of items in videos which go through a list. it makes these videos much more enjoyable especially if you are only interested in a few items in said list.
@@Robstalobsta82 ProZD should just film himself yelling at his editor, even better
@@brodftw Turns out the editor is himself in a different wig.
1:11 Scrabble/paperback
3:00 Battleship/Captain Sonar
4:45 Clue/Search for planet X/Alchemists
7:35 Catan/Bohnanza
9:00 Cards Against Humanity/Say anything
9:52 Risk/Blood Rage/Zombiecide
12:10 Monopoly/Machi Koro/Space Base
15:00 Game of Life/ Tokaido
17:12 Sorry!/ Can't Stop
19:30 Candyland/ Camel Up
Thanks much!
Only one I heard of is monopoly
Why spoil the video...
@@YooranKujara I watched the whole video to see what he had to say about the games, but this is a really useful reference for me when I come back to this later.
6 nimmit/no thank looks classiciah but is sooooo goood too!👍
"Alchemist is a great game. You play as wizards or whatever."
I think you might play as alchemists...
That's the joke...
@@Nocturne22 His “delivery” on that hardly sounded deliberate. Sung Won I’ve noticed is one to generalize on these sorts of things. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a joke, he’s just doing an unscripted video so won’t always be super tight on the terminology.
Y’know...I’m not sure. Maybe they’re sorcerers.
Alchemy! The science of deconstruction and reconstruction!
I hated this game, feels like I am doing homework. for most people it wont be fun.
When I was a kid I remember flipping over the Candy Land board and drawing on the back with a white pencil to create a new board. We called it Negative Land, and it had things like Doom Crow, that made you lose a turn, or the Bridge of Marginal Progression that moved you ahead like two spaces. I think the end goal was to reach Batman.
It's not often that I encounter bonafide geniuses on youtube
@@petersaint5581 Agreed. But today, my life has changed.
@@petersaint5581 Honestly, a game space name like "Bridge of Marginal Progression" deserves a Nobel Prize by itself.
The name "Bridge of Marginal Progression" gives me big "Munchkin" vibes.
@@piguy9225 “bridge of munchkin progression”
I think the key thing about Candyland is that it's actually very good for what it is, but what it is is not so much a game as a way to teach kids HOW to play games.
There's no strategy, so it's fine for kids who are very young, but it involves taking turns, following rules, and some people losing. All those things are critical for kids to learn to move on to real games, and your 2 year old can't engage with, say, Tokaido (a fantastic game) at nearly the level required to enjoy themself.
I have played a lot of Candy Land, and sure, it's not strategically interesting, but it helped my kid learn to take turns, and just as importantly, to lose some.
That's how I always used it. It has all of the elements of a game (taking turns, winning and losing, minor setbacks) it gets kids to understand game procedure without being overwhelming.
no its bad kids arnt stupid
Candyland is a preset story told through the application of game rules. Haba games are a good alternative to this.
No one said they were
@@pablogarcia6188 yes it's bad and yes kids are stupid.
he didn't eat any of these, how can he call himself a food reviewer
top tier comment
@Andrew K maybe he's board. Games.
@Andrew K is this a woosh or am I getting wooshed?
That's what you think...
Only a Juggalo can eat boardgames
This is an especially good list, thank you.
0:58 *Scrabble*
1:27 Paperback
2:16 Letter Tycoon
2:58 *Battleship*
3:12 Captain Sonar
4:43 *Clue*
5:18 The Search for Planet X
6:29 Alchemists
7:30 *Catan*
8:15 Bohnanza
9:00 *Cards Against Humanity*
9:18 Say Anything
9:50 *Risk*
10:13 Blood Rage
11:23 Zombicide Black Plague
12:10 *Monopoly*
12:52 Machi Koro
13:28 Space Base
14:58 *The Game of Life*
15:17 Tokaido
17:08 *Sorry!*
17:53 Can't Stop
19:29 *Candyland*
19:50 Camel Up
MVP
These timestamps are way better than the other comment with 960 likes.
You are a hero, thank you sincerely
Thank you
Why isn't this included in the video description or pinned...
I prefer SmallWorld as a better version of Risk. Mostly strategic, but doesnt have the "winner keeps winning" problem as reroutibg strategy is a part of the game, and its done in 30 mins to an hour
Small world is great and I've enjoyed using it as a beginners foray into any sort of 'war game'. But Risk is always a classic and I love it. I also love more engaging Risk variations (Risk 2210 AD is probably my favorite). I feel like Risk's huge issue is the Monopoly issue where a lot of people don't actually know all the rules. Also, many folk I've played don't seem to realize there's only so many rounds in Risk before it's supposed to end and turns don't need to take ages but most people just overthink it all or, lastly, no one pulls the trigger on a game ending move (or game shifting move to drastically change the board state) because 'feels bad' to make someone have to drop out of the game.
SmallWorld in an hour?!? How? Lol
It's true that in SmallWorld the winner doesn't necessarily use their advantage to keep winning, but also any advantage someone gets in the beginning makes them hard to surpass later on. It just hides the problem imo
@@hexagon_ Small World isn't just "hiding the problem." Yes, if someone gets an early advantage, other players will have to play riskier to surpass them... but it does not, _in addition_, give them a mechanical advantage. They don't get larger armies because they have more VP.
Getting an early lead SHOULD make it easier to win. If it didn't, then it wouldn't matter. If early gains had NO effect on who's more likely to win in the later parts of the game, then it's not a "gain" at all. The difference is between "you have to play better to make up the difference" vs. "your agency is diminished, making it nigh-impossible to even keep pace, much less catch up, which compounds itself as the other player gets further and further into the lead."
@@hexagon_ Tbf credit to them for maintaining their advantage
You mentioned how lots of people have played Catan as their first foray into more advanced games. It would be cool to see a "10 board games to play now that you're into Catan" or something like that, and show some recommendations that are just a little more involved/challenging for the curious board-gamer :)
would love this!!!
Bus, Spirit Island, Castles of Burgundy...those come to mind, but I'd love to see a list from ProZD.
@@johnathanrhoades7751 Spirit Island is a little intense just coming off of Catan. Carcasonne, maybe Agricola/Cave Farmers?
Agreed. I never want to play catan specifically again but it's because I've played it too much. But would be happy to play a similar kind!
@@Boggzorz i would recomend Concordia
The problem with things like Say Anything is that most people just aren’t funny. Having the crutch of pre-determined phrases to choose from is essential when you aren’t creative enough on your own.
Shut Up and Sit Down recommended FunEmployed instead of CAH, and I think it's a better game - putting together a combination of cards gives you an opportunity to be witty yourself with enough of a crutch that you don't draw a blank, and having the communal card pool gives everyone more material to work with. Plus the conceit of going into an interview when you don't feel qualified is a really evocative and unusual setup.
Yeah, that pretty much describes my entire experience playing games with more of a free form party game... people are not good on their feet.
Balderdash is usually a fun time, and you're more focused on trying to trick your friends than actually having to try and be funny. Typically, the funny moments happen when people go for absurdity.
Not a board game but still a fun party game is Quiplash, from some of the JackBox Collections video game series. Players are given two prompts to answer within 70 seconds or so, and after everyone has submitted their answers (or time runs out) the game will take those answers and display them to the room, everyone except the two players vote on which one they like the best and you can earn bonuses for things like taking the entire room or taking the majority, etc. It's pretty fun, and there's a no-filter option where you might get some adult-themed questions to answer, but otherwise it's pretty fun to play.
I think Bring Your Own Book manages to strike the perfect balance between player agency and picking from canned answers - the cards inside the box serve as the prompts, but you find your answers as snippets of books you own by flipping through the one in front of you. It’s a great way to make everyone feel somewhat clever in finding their answers while setting the level of family-friendliness you want via the book selection.
In my game group, Candy Land is used as an initiation ritual of sorts, where we show inductees how serious we take games by playing a game of it with the seriousness of a YuGiOh anime battle.
Candy Land doesn't even have any decision points. What are you supposed to be hype about? Might as well flip a deck of cards one by one and get excited about who flips the last one. There's no difference.
@@shawndiaz7528 Spoken like someone who doesn't have faith in their friends or trusts in the heart of the cards.
My deck has no worthless cards @Shawn Diaz
@@tombuell2782 "Ha, Plumpy? What's THAT card going to do?"
I would like to try and join your group
Candyland is hilarious because how brutally unfair the cards can be. Watching someone go from a few squares away from the castle all the way back to Plumpy is so beautiful.
I think I was 10 when I realized that some board games gave you no control over winning or losing. Candyland started to seem silly, and Snakes and Ladders was never the same.
A card game I would recommend for the "Cards Against Humanity" category: Someone has died.
Basically someone has died and everyone has to convince the estate holder why they deserve the deceased's fortune with an improv story involving the identity, relationship with the deceased, and 2 backstory cards. It really tests your ability to tell a cohesive story. The game is kid friendly so no offensive cards but pure silliness.
So tell me. Tell me why you deserve the Tulip collection of Mrs. Baker's who died by drowning in batter at her cupcake factory?
Identity: A Talking Dog,
Relationship: You killed their Iguana,
Backstory: Hulk Hands
Backstory: A life-sized cardboard cutout of the deceased.
- All actual cards.
Love it. Such a good game.
This sounds very similar to another game I love, Funemployed! You get 3 cards that are basically also backstory cards. The "judge" for that round is hiring for a position, you're at an interview, and you have to spin your cards to argue that you'd be the best one for the job.
The judge also has one card per player in THEIR hand that they play during your pitch, just to throw a wrench in and test how quickly you can incorporate the new card and how well you can spin it for the job.
Only downside is a lot of the cards are NSFW, so not a good game for kids.
Sounds great; I've added it to my list, thanks!
Jumping in with yet another game in a similar vein: Snake Oil. The “judge” has a consumer role, like high school dropout, cowboy, dumpster diver, etc. and the other players have to combine two cards from their hand to make a product that they then have to pitch to the consumer.
Also, a game still in development is Game Jam, a card game about designing video games. (This one is probably more easily explained with a show, not tell: th-cam.com/video/AjDLAoUM4YA/w-d-xo.html )
@@MetaCrossing i LOVE snake oil!! thank you!
In fairness to candy land it's literally for babies
That's what got in my craw a tad... if you're not recommending me something my 3 year old could have played, I don't know what use you think this is. Not many people confused and playing Candy Land at 20 years old because they never thought something better existed
@@HelloQuaino I think the intention is that families with children who grew up with Candyland and want something new yet familiar. Similar enough to Candyland that the kids take to learning it quickly while still different enough from Candyland (aka actual choices to be made) so the parents aren't bored out of their minds just to entertain the children.
Sorta. Candyland actually has a fascinating history; it was something easy for kids who had polio and were in the iron lung could play easily. I'm not kidding, it's why in some older versions there's a boy with a leg brace on.
@@LeoMidori woah that’s crazy
@@LeoMidori "play" is a bit of a stretch though. You don't do anything. It's just a movie made of cardboard and plastic. There are zero decisions to make. But since they were pretty much incapacitated while in the iron lung, it allowed them to use their imaginations that they were the ones on the trip through Candy Land.
If you like rolling dice, and having that "GOT YA"/battle feeling, Dice Throne is insanely fun.
Hi I'm subscribed
@@Chillgamesh Hi subscribed, I'm dad.
Me and my uncle love playing dice throne
You should do a collab with proZD sometime
@@someguy198 good one
So, the 'Dice Rolling' issue in Catan is actually something that the community and designers discovered and solved a long time ago. You can get a Dice Deck, which is just a stack of cards that has a 'shuffle deck' card somewhere near the bottom that perfectly replicates the distribution of resources tokens. It took me from loathing Catan to really enjoying it again. Highly recommended.
So what actually is the issue with dice rolling?
@@theindiefanclub It's random and over the course of the game doesn't necessarily reflect the probability distribution of the tiles. I've played whole games where like a 6 or and 8 is only rolled once, which can be very frustrating. Some people might like this, however, b/c it's fun to have a 3 or 4 tile, etc. rolled a bunch of times unexpectedly. To each their own.
@@byst33 Oh right, because there basically aren't enough rounds total in a game for the CLT to apply and ensure that the sampled rolls end up mirroring their distributions all that well?
So then a dice deck solves that by ensuring that the distribution is perfectly followed, the trade-off then being that if you remember/count the numbers pulled you then can start to make better predictions about the numbers that will come in the future which is kind of offset by the fact that decisions about that stuff is way more important in the early game anyway?
I personally do enjoy the randomness, since I usually play with groups with very mixed experience and it helps level the playing field and I guess I'm also a massive casual w/r/t boardgames. I guess if I played more and more intensely with a crowd who were experienced things might change.
Thanks for clearing that up for me though!
@@byst33 Every few Catan games you get fucked by dice rolls, and you can also have a great game when you get perfect rolls. Because of how the human brain works most people will sooner forget the shit games and remember the good ones.
@@danil8663 Actually, that goes against common wisdom on human psychology. On other facets of life it’s the bad stuff one remembers.
But it’s so true about board games. That one game where you killed it sticks with you and makes you want to play the game more even if you usually do poorly at it.
I guess it’s the nature of games with more than two players where you expect to lose more than win just because math. So wins are more precious and memorable.
This is slowly becoming a board game and food review channel and I’m here for it
So long as it doesn't become the "Rates pokemon and gets his mom's opinion on [TREND]" channel, I'm cool with it.
What do you Hasn't it always been that lol
That's TH-cam for you. Actual talent and effort is no longer welcome. Just be a TV talk show or stream yourself doing something mundane for 20+ minutes.
Came for the skits, stayed for the board games
@@varsoonhks3211 How dare you. I want to hear his pokemon ratings
Me: "I agree, Risk is too long."
Also me: "Let's sit down for a nice -day- weekend of Twilight Imperium."
Risk is too long for what it is. At least Twilight Imperium can lay claim to having a purpose for its length.
@@devintheee Eclipse is a good midpoint, gives you a lot of the same dynamics and vibe of TI without being mammoth length
I mean personally to me i love risk, i always liked the star wars clone wars version and played it a bunch of times. It can get long but honestly its a strategy game, its going to be long if you play it right
@@pieman2906 completely different games. Eclipse is a eurogame
The memester in me half expected him to suggest TI4 as a more sophisticated alternative to Catan. After all, Catan is just TI-lite
I don’t think I’ve ever actually finished a game of Monopoly before. Pretty much every time I played it as a kid it would be me playing with my brothers and cousins. The game would go on for hours until 3 people were left. One would basically own the entire board, another would be kind of well to do, and the last would be living off the $200 pass go money like a tick sucking an anemic moose, praying that they’ll get sent to jail so they can be safe for 3 turns. At that point, those who were left would just quit because everyone else that already got eliminated would be playing Xbox or watching a movie, and they no longer felt like playing Monopoly.
If you play Monopoly with good players, it becomes almost Risk level of strategic. There’s still a heavy element of randomization, but now the players are forming agreements, there are auctions that are heavily strategized, and people use any hint of weakness to try to leverage their superior cash for valuable properties. Anything less, though, and the game really sucks. It’s as random as Candy Land, 20 times as long, and just generally monotonous
@@benjaminlillis7807 And I know it's probably been beat to death at this point, but you gotta play without house rules. Any house rule that adds money to the game ($500 on free parking etc.) just prolongs the game. A lot of people who say they think monopoly takes too long are most likely playing with these house rules.
@@callumnovak4450 That’s fair, but even without house rules it’s still a time commitment. Just less so.
@@benjaminlillis7807 it's 1 hour, no more than 2 max if everyone knows how to play and no house rules and everyone is paying attention instead of f-ing off into another room somewhere when it's not their turn. If you are doing any of the above it will take longer, but then if you are doing that, then playing the game itself was never actually the point and it was just hanging out and having fun together
My quickest game of monopoly with three players has taken about 45 min and longest prob around 1.5 hoursish. This is strictly board game tho.
The most important thing about playing Catan is remembering that the true villain isn’t any of the other players, but the die itself
I've seen those dice do strange and evil things.
When 2 and 11 become more likely than 6 and 8
@@j0shmyg0sh90 Every time I play, 8 is for some god forsaken reason the most rare number for us
@@dna9095 It happens every time
@@douglasdea637 me putting all my city's near 8s and 9s but mf get 11-12 4 times jn a row
10. Scrabble 1:01 - Paperback 1:29 / Letter Tycoon 2:18
9. Battleship 3:00 - Captain Sonar 3:13
8. Clue 4:45 - The search for Planet X 5:20 /Alchemists 6:30
7. Catan 7:30 - Bohnanza 8:15
6. Cards against humanity 9:00 - Say Anything 9:19
5. Risk 9:50 - Blood Rage 10:16 / Zombicide: Black Plague 11:25
4. Monopoly 12:09 - Machi koro 12:51 / Space base 13:28
3. LIFE 14:56 - Tokaido 15:15
2. Sorry 17:08 - Can’t Stop 17:53
1. Candy land 19:30 - camel up 19:48
It's a shame it's so hard to get a copy of Planet X or put together a group large enough for a good game of Captain Sonar
Thank you, I need this list as a reference lol. Planning on looking into a few of them like Machi Koro and Tokaido because I've seen them in shops around here.
@@noahh6186 same here!
i don't even own a single board game but still watch it
same lol, it's so fun to watch
that's how it begins
I don't even have a single friend, but still watch it.
@@1235q hey, maybe check out tabletop simulator! wingspan is on there, which a fun foray into indie games, and you can make friends through there!
Lmao same, but I work at a comic/game store and his vids rly help me recommend games to customers
On the vein of Clue, I really enjoy Mysterium. It has a similar guess mechanism to Clue, but it's semi-cooperative and one player takes on the role of the ghost of the victim and can only communicate via vague image cards.
Thanks for mentioning Mysterium - I'm gonna check it out! Problem I had with his suggestion to replace Clue was that it didn't have the murder mystery aspect that I love about Clue. Deduction isn't the same for me if it doesn't have that old timey classic Agatha Christie whodunnit aesthetic. Mysterium sounds great!
@@_elle If you can get a decent size of gamers going you should try Deception Murder in Hong Kong. You're solving a modern day murder with vague clues but one of you will be the murderer trying to throw everyone else off.
@@FatherTime89 That sounds cool, too - thanks!!
Mysterium is A+++ one of my favorite games. I haven't played it enough with the same group of people though to know if it has staying power. I could see it becoming predictable
One of my favorite who dunnit games takes place on spaceship. For this one you need 10 people or crewmates. There are 2 imposters who try and sabotage and kill to win. It’s called amog and is really fun!!!11!!
As a Cards Against Humanity or Apples to Apples replacement, I highly recommend Bring Your Own Book. Similar idea where you’re trying to give the best answer for a prompt based on the current judge, but you draw your responses from text in whatever book you have on hand. It avoids both the mindlessness of just picking the funniest cards and the stress of writing your own answers. The humor comes from taking things out of context, and it can be hilarious
That sounds fucking arduous.
I need this game
Whoa that sounds awesome! Especially for people who actually read haha
The only thing that I've seen that seems to come close to the Apples to Apples style but still be interesting is the Bob Ross Happy Little Accidents game. Everyone draws a little squiggle that they pass to someone else. Then a card is flipped which says what you need to draw. You have to turn that squiggle into art in 30 seconds. Then everyone votes on the winner.
Or you can play Codenames, Werewolf, or if you have six or fewer, Cash 'n Guns.
Sounds fun until someone decides to bring a dictionary and can write whatever they want because every word is in their book and is easily locatable.
another game to replace Clue that keeps the same setting is Deception: Murder in Hong Kong! I grew up with Clue and Deception is easily my favorite board game. Planet X is fun but it doesn't scratch my itch for detective noire shit.
That was my immediate thought when he mentioned deduction and reasoning
The game I replaced Clue is 13 Clues :) It's basicly Clue without dice rolling. Also everyone has their own case to solve, so even after one has solved his case, the others can guess :)
I just made this comment before seeing yours! I only got this game recently and my friends and I absolutely love it. We all play loads of hidden role games and this one has become a favourite!
Thank you for this! I love the detective-y nature of Clue plus the atmosphere of the old mansion etc. Space games aren't really my jam, so I will look into this one.
@@ih82r8 I'm glad I could help! The vibe for Deception isn't necessarily old mansion, but thankfully due to the open-ended nature of the murders themselves, you can choose to set that vibe yourself. It's tonally very open-ended. I hope you have fun!
I played "Hardcore" monopoly with a group of drinking buddies and it was messed up. No rules applied to anyone unless someone called it out, so you had to collect rent when someone landed on your space while the player who did is trying to get the next person to roll so they get to stay for free once the next turn starts. You can steal money or properties from other players when they are not paying attention, but if you get caught, you go to jail. Free parking means everyone rolls the dice and the lowest number has a tornado take out one of their houses. Railroads cannot be bought, but they can be ridden to the next stop for $100. Utility spaces are just like income tax spaces. and you had to read your community chest and chance cards out loud followed by "in bed". Idk why I even remember this many rules, but I'm sure there were some I was forgetting.
I. LOVE. This. What a fun idea for intense monopoly rules. I want to try it now!
Going to jail is actually a good thing though lategame, the optimal strategy would be to get some property, and then to repeatedly break the rules to gain the benefit of going to jail (sitting out while others lose).
Your version of Monopoly is sheer chaos incarnate.
@@marc4575 except you can't collect rent from jail
My family does a lot of wheeling and dealing that isn't in the rules but isn't expressly forbidden either: like for example, player A lands on a property that's up for sale but has no cash. Player B sidles up like, "I'll give you the money, and let you stay for free for the rest of the game, but I'll also collect all the rent." Or "I'll go halvsies with you" and then in the late game there's a bunch of buyouts and mergers
Tokaido is basically seeing who had the best vacation of all the players and that appeals to me.
Instagram: The Game
My wife bought that game for us and quite frankly I really don't like it. I get what it's trying to do but I find it really boring.
Its japan themed game of life vacations
I really like Machi Koro, my biggest gripe with it is that you quickly figure out that there is a meta to it, once people catch onto that, the replayability dies quite fast
What is the meta for machi koro? Only played it once and really liked it and was planning to buy it in the future, so I'm just curious what the deal breaker is? 😮
@@Ray_Argues Maybe it's just that we're not experienced enough but cheese factories and stacking dairy cards was quite overpowered since the cheese factories gave money depending on the amount of dairy cards you had and activated on rolling a 7 which is the number with the biggest odds when playing with 2 6-sided dies.
Also, playing with random cards available helps reduce the issue since you can't really force it anymore, it's just that everytime someone starts to pull of that build, it feels pointless. Still a great game I would recommend
@@dyskau8202 This sounds like a Prozd skit.
@@dyskau8202 even though 7 is the most commonly rolled number, I feel like the vast majority of Machi Koro games I have played feature people rolling less common numbers A LOT (a common experience for anyone who has played CATAN).
Every game I’ve played the cheese factories haven’t been very useful at all. I have the BRIGHT LIGHTS BIG CITY version of the game
@@__dane__ Well, odds are odds, not every game will match the odds. But I don't think I've ever lost with the cheese factory build on, rolling 7 once means buying the most expensive monument instantly and then it's over.
The only memory i have of candy land is in hs my mom burst into my room when she realized i was alone with my boyfriend up there and she was ready to bust some hanky panky but instead found us playing candy land on the floor. She slunk out of the room and left us alone feeling bad she thought we were up to no good, but after she left we proceeded to get up to no good and forget candy land lol
Ahh the ol Fakeout then Take-it-Out.
Alternately, the "Candyland and Handy-land"
@@lucasallen5415 you do not understand the amount of joy I experienced from this comment hahaha
@@lucasallen5415 Jesus Christ this deserves more recognition
@@lucasallen5415 So the actual reason for giving privacy is that they are permanently stuck in the fakeout-phase? Clever
My replacements for Clue would have been “Awkward Guests” and “Chronicles of Crime” where you’re actually playing deduction murder mysteries rather than a deduction of another theme.
Mine would be Cryptid
Mystery of the Abbey is also fun. It’s like Clue mixed with Guess Who.
Awkward guests is awesome, i had the chance of meeting the creators and they were so nice, one of my all time favourites
Mysterium (Cluedo meets Dixit) and Obscurio also deserve a mention as well.
I like that you managed to distill the things that make these games enjoyable and made appropriate recommendations based on the feelings they inspire rather than, I don’t know, “theme” for example, like betrayal at house on the hill is not in the same category as clue despite the fact that they’re both macabre mansions that you explore room by room. Really good thought put into these answers and I look forward to playing the ones I haven’t yet that you mentioned
I still remember my brother insisting we play Monopoly over and over again when we were young college kids because he was determined to devise a winning strategy. After a solid week of Monopoly he looked at me in defeat and said, “It really IS just luck.” 😂😂
And let’s not forget the last game of Risk we played where our younger brother tied him up fighting to regain Alberta whilst I quietly conquered the globe. To this day when anyone mentions Risk, the three of us narrow our eyes and whisper, “Albertaaaaa.” 🤣
I sure do miss the days when I had people to play board games with. 😌
Watch the youtube channel Swiftopoly. On that channel the same guy wins almost every time. Monopoly is not just all luck.
@@kingrex1931 my brother will be thrilled. 😂
technically there is some strategy - but the majority of that is grabbing the properties that people are most likely to land on (there are a couple that are statistically much more likely) ... everything else really is just chance
I PLAYED TOKAIDO YEARS AGO AND COULDNT REMEMBER THE NAME OF IT THANK YOU
Hot seat and Quiplash are more replacements for Cards Against Humanity.
Quiplash is a ton of fun, I highly recommend it as well. Same with Fibbage and Drawful, they're a similar concept but you're given a right answer and the players get to come up with all the wrong answers to trick each other.
Super Fight
Another good replacement that I have and play very regularly is the game 'Bucket of Doom', it has a similar premise with the whole 'question cards and answer cards' deal, but you have to be a lot more creative in the way you use them as props to your answer rather than just your answer on their own.
Would also strongly recommend Joking Hazard made by the same people that make the comic Cyanide and Happiness. It's *so* much fun and way less repetitive than CAH.
@@Jabadamazo Pog!
Another game I would recommend if you like Clue is a little game called “Dracula’s Feast: New Blood”. It’s not as complex as “The Search for Planet X”, but it scratches that itch of asking other players questions to deduce something. In this case, you are trying to figure out who everyone is, and you can do that by asking yes/no questions, asking to “dance”, and just paying attention to what others are asking. It’s a fun light deduction party game, so check it out if you haven’t 🙂
Or Mystery of the Abbey.
I don’t play search for planet X. I play “search for Uranus.” Where everyone in the room searched for “Uranus”
Murder: Deception in Hong Kong is another good replacement for Clue. Someone has to be the caller and it's better with more people, but it really hits that who-dun-it process. For Monopoly I would have said Stockpile, it really hits that capitalism/property not and it's a great game. Last instead of Camel Up, Full Throttle goes one step further and has the Candyland random deck of moves but players bet during the game which removes those cards. Great list just wanted to add some alternatives.
"candyland is not a game"
Why would you say something so controversial yet so brave?
Because it's true.
When I was little and my little sister wanted to play, I'd distract her while I stacked the deck so I'd get the Queen Frostine card because 1) I'd win early and 2) I really liked the picture of her.
Morgan Balbert
Sta mor khaiam
It isn't though. One tweak I've heard that at least makes it slightly less mind numbing is to draw two cards. That way you can at least show your children very basic math and strategy.
I like playing wallpaper engine
"Acquire" is a great replacement for Monopoly. It has money management strategies for early mid and late game (because you can run out if you're not careful) and replaces property management with stock management. There are no dice so randomness is minimal and each turn you MUST place a square on the grid. Once the grid is full, the game is over, so the playtime is finite with a clean satisfying ending.
ugh, i hated acquire! i played the whole game thinking the goal was to build a successful hotel… when in actuality the way to succeed is to deliberately make things fail and buy lots and lots of stocks
("eruption" is another game where the winning strategy is the opposite of what you might think to do in reality: you're _supposed_ to protect your village from a volcano… but since you get bonus cards and actions (and additional volcano source tiles!) by crossing "heat" thresholds, it's often better to start the game by forcing your own village to get as hot as quickly as possible, hold onto any "rain" cards you draw, and blow them all in the last turn of the game)
@@soupalex another fun game that has a kinda weird, opposite type strategy is Village. In it, you need to score by getting your villagers to die in certain areas instead of letting them die and be buried in unmarked graves. So it's a game that you actually want to force your family to die very quickly so you can fill up more of the village chronicle
@@cliffritch7304 sounds like "gloom" (although the fluff for that actually agrees with the mechanics: you're _supposed_ to win by making your family miserable and killing them; in contrast, e.g. acquire is supposedly about building a successful business (or businesses), but the mechanics actually reward you for torpedo-ing them (this could be read as a satire of capitalism and the way bosses are rewarded with "golden parachutes" even when they completely fuck everything up, but i don't think this was intentional)
@@soupalex Sounds like someone may not have explained Acquire to you very well. The goal is purely to get filthy rich. The strategy is interesting because as you mentioned, you get money off of failed hotels you have invested in, but you also get a big payout at the end of the game if you are a majority shareholder in one of the inevitable super chains that actually survives. The whole thing is about balancing your priorities between short term profits and long term profits (and recognizing which stocks are short term vs long term investments).
The game can definitely be a bit frustrating and unintuitive at times, and believe me I've felt that, but at the end of the day I would have to call it a good strategy game.
i do appreciate that people are acknowledging that monopoly isn’t fun. it’s not really supposed to be, lmao
Monopoly isn't fun because it's overplayed. It's the "idiot" of board games go to game. The person who knows nothin or doesn't care about board games but still want to say "hey I play board games sometimes"
I find it pretty fun. It’s like getting to play the villain in a video game
I’ve been saying monopoly is crap since middle school.
I always found it fun, the key is lose graciously 90% of the time and enjoy when you win.
You don't like destroying your friend's spirits under you capitalist heel?
I will say that some of the themed versions of risk are much, much more fun than the basic game. Risk 2210 in particular had a lot of interesting additions and fun mechanics that could swing the game, so the dice weren't the only thing that ran the show.
_I think if anyone wants to play Risk, I'd be suggesting Small Worlds. It's a lot quicker, a fantasty elements, and a randomised race and power feature that make it really fun to replay each time._
All the Risk variants I've played have also been much faster games than the original. Many get into the 1hr mark, instead of all day like the base Risk. Risk Legacy also changes every time you play it, which is fun if you have a recurring group to play with.
@@ericscherbarth1817 yeah they do seem to add a turn cap or some other mechanic to reign it in a bit, which tells me they absolutely know that the "total domination" win condition from the core game just wasn't a good call 😆
@@ericscherbarth1817 I've never had a base game Risk take all day unless we purposefully wanted a long game. There's a round limit in Risk and it feels like most people don't seem to grasp that or forget. Seems to be some level of Monopoly effect where house rules are ingraned into people's psyche but aren't official and arbitrarily make games harder or longer than than they need to be XD Or people just don't make the game winning move lest they make a friend feel bad for being dropped out of the game.
But Risk variants are often better due to being more engaging as they give defenders things to do as well BESIDES rolling defense dice and have ways to fortify their key positions.
To the OP, I do like Small World and makes a great entry 'war game' but it fundamentally IS just Risk Lite and doesn't scratch my itch as much and while the random races/trait feature can be fun, there really are just some God awful ones that make your time with them feel horrid and you WANT to die instantly to redraw a combo or some are just so damn good they give a massive advantage for a long period of time compared. It's a fine little game but not without flaws of it's own.
I loved the 2210 version. Why turtle away in Australia when you could concur The Moon!
Of all of these, "Captain Sonar" definitely had the most "grocery store brand" name.
I haven't even finished the intro yet and I agree.
It definitely does, but the name undersells how good the game is. I've never been able to play it with more than 4 people total (and turn-by-turn not realtime mode) but even then it's a blast
Idk space base is pretty up there
@@RaidsEpicly you haaaaavvvee to play it real time; I feel like turn based just doesn't capture the spirit of the game which is crazy chaotic attempts at cooperation. Also, I feel like 3v3 is the best number of players for it since the First Mate role is hardly a role. So hopefully you can find another 2 friends to play it with you sometime :)
Whenever I think of a "better Clue", my mind goes to Mysterium. On its core it's still a "solve the crime" type of game, but the way it delivers clues to the players is really unique. It is also coop, which is I guess a twist on the genre in some way. I really love the game, and I always recommend it whenever I have the chance. I yet have to play it on higher difficulty setups, though!
It really isnt the same as clue at all though. You're not solving a mystery through deduction, you're interpreting abstract images
I always liked Mystery of the Abbey. Mechanics are very Clue-like in that everyone has a hand of cards to eliminate suspects, but instead of roll-and-move, you can move up to 2 spaces with your monk. If you encounter another players piece, you get to ask them any question that does not require a name as an answer. They can choose to take a "vow of silence" and not answer, or answer your question, but then get to ask you a question in return which you must answer. Everyone hears this, so information can get around the table a bit faster, depending on the questions. After a few rounds, everyone assembles for "Mass" and some number of cards are passed to the left by each player, which also helps info get around.
There are different locations of the abbey which can give players cards with special abilities or let them take cards from other players, and there's one room where you go to make assertions about the murderer, or a final accusation. Each card has a monk with a different combination of aspects (fat/thin, bald/hooded, bearded/shaven, Novice/Brother/Father, Franciscan/Templar/Benedictine). At the end of the game for every correct assertion you get 2 points, but lose 1 for each wrong one. If you correctly identified the murderer, you get 4 points, but lose 2 if you guessed wrong. The scoring method means that the person who correctly identifies the murderer may not actually win the game. Although in my experience, you usually get two or three players who identify the murderer on the same turn, who are then rushing to that room on the last turn trying to be the first one to accuse.
Still a fun game, IMO. Too bad it's out of print, which is why I am sure it was not mentioned in this video.
I feel like the beat way to describe Mysterium is "right brain codenames"
We played Kill Doctor Lucky, Clue, and Mysterium as a three part campaign once. First, the murder, second, the whodunit, third is Dr. Lucky/Mr. Boddy communicating from beyond the grave.
For me it's Deception that replaces Clue. It's kinda like Mysterium meets Codenames meets Clue: you're solving a murder by interpreting and deducing the word clues the scientist gives you
Finally someone making the distinction between "games" and "following instructions as a flesh-made piece-mover". Some games really play themselves.
You mean games for literally infants
I'm surprised he didn't mention the Game of the Goose. It's historically been pretty popular where I live, but you could literally randomize a series of inputs with a computer and decide the winner in less than a second.
@@SpadesNoir haven’t heard of it, maybe it’s not popular in the us? not sure what place you live in
Game pf the goose is pretty popular in germany netherlands area of europe
It is so terrible that my brother and i came up with a goosedeath variant where every square that doesnt contain a number kills you instantly except the one where you would normally die and you win when you get on that square which is 37 if I remember correctly but its a rough estimate
The game is so hard to win that we have only won 4 or 5 times over around 6 years of playing on average once per week
But i always joked that game of the goose is better than monopoly because it doesn’t last as long and is just as (un)fun
"Game is a series of interesting choices". Is it really a game if you don't make any?
Stole that from Sid Meier.
When people want to play Risk, I suggest Root. You can still pick factions that involve building up armies to control territories, but the variety of factions adds so many different approaches to winning. Battles are dice-based, but the way the game is structured, your tactical use of combat is a much bigger factor than your rolls
Root is a great game but a huuge step up in complexity, especially depending on the faction you play.
Unless you play regularly, your group will never get comfortable with Root.
@MumrikDK it’s a good thing if your playgroup never gets comfortable with root. It really loses its charm once you understand all the rules/factions - because you’ll understand that it’s fundamentally unbalanced and not very deep. But the ride to get there is soooooo fun.
@@gabrieltwinwithulm7466 what's a similarly-vibed game to progress to once we've reached that point, in your opinion?
@@jakeporch4236 I'm not sure, sorry! To be honest, I've reached "that point" and I'm still really enjoying it. I said it loses its charm earlier but that's not really true, it just never ends up feeling like a war game. Root makes that promise of giving you the war game experience but once you learn all the rules it's just a laid back role playing game.
"I don't like Catan"
"Play bean game instead"
I hate Catan. It's not terrible but it is sort of gamer cancer. when a group of people uses it as their gateway to more interesting games they get stuck on it like for some reason society gets stuck watching reruns of friends or the office or something. and there's so many games that do what it does without being badly broken. The badly broken thing about Catan is you can get hosed in your first couple turns and be stuck in the game with no chance of winning. so now you have 40 minutes to an hour to kill with no hope in the game system. So you either check out or king-make or troll. The game isn't fun for you and there's a pretty good chance you're making the game less fun for everybody else. We shouldn't play Catan.
@@GunFunZS How dare you diss The Office! It wasn’t always great, and like 3-4 of its seasons sorta sucked, but it wasn’t a gateway to better things, it was innovative. There’s only like one other successful show with its format, and granted Parks and Rec is probably better, but come on
@@benjaminlillis7807 it's painfully cringy. Further just every single episode does not seem plausible that anybody could keep their job and do that nonsense. And also I really really don't like infidelity. But I'm supposed to ship a romance of somebody who's cheating on her fiance effectively is not charming it's really unappealing. So yeah I will diss the office. Everything the first few seasons got right was a lower grade rip off of the British version. The same criticisms apply to the British version but kind of more so.
@@GunFunZS That’s not true. The American Office was a deviation from the UK Office because it was much less mean spirited, and had a more American style of humor. Whether that’s a good thing is up to your interpretation: I think it works better in this context. It’s making fun of the jobs that working class Americans participate in, so it’s inevitably going to heighten certain scenarios and become a bit unreal for satirical purposes. This becomes worse and worse as the show goes on, hence why I said that about half the show was not worth watching. The relationship between Jim and Pam is of course one that involves cheating. But Roy is shown to be overly controlling, and more than a bit abusive. Pam rushed into this relationship straight out of high school, not even getting a college degree. She committed to a person who was unable to handle it at an age where she was too young to do anything about it, and she was scared of leaving him because of his controlling presence, and because of her lack of experience in the world outside of her relationship that made her want to leave. And anyway, for all this justification I’ve given, this is a show that always portrayed Jim as just a bit of a jerk, especially in the beginning of the show, and Pam was willing to spend her life with someone she really didn’t like before he came along. While the show may have portrayed this up front as some great romance, I think if you read between the lines a bit you’ll see that this relationship really shouldn’t have had the tools for success, and it was only through their development as characters that they didn’t enter a similar situation to Pam and Roy. As for what you said about the show being painfully cringy, well yeah, that’s sort of the point. There are entire episodes dedicated to that, like Scott’s Tots. Some of the most critically acclaimed episodes of the series, such as Dinner Party, are also the most cringe-inducing. Ultimately, that’s just a matter of preference. Also, if you don’t like a particular style of comedy and you watch an entire sitcom built around said style of comedy, you’re not going to enjoy it. It’s like if you watch Community, my personal favorite sitcom, and hate meta humor. You’re going to think that the show is pretentious and annoying.
@@benjaminlillis7807 yeah that's exactly what every romantic comedy does when they set up woman cheating on her boyfriend or husband to get the protagonist. It's super immoral and everyone should be uncomfortable with it. so they always build a bunch of flaws into the guy they're cheating on so you say I guess it's okay because later we find out he has some flaw. It's exactly as a reasonable as to say that it's fine for me too rob that guy in the back alley because later it turns out he's a racist.
It isn't just crappy it's also so predictable because they write exactly that arc every time they need to justify getting you to buy in to really crappy behavior. And I hate training the rest of the world to think like that. I don't think the show is brilliant, it's always been uncomfortable for me to be around. I realized that people enjoy awkwardness but I am not one of them. It's fine for you to enjoy awkwardness and embarrassing. But come on there have been so many other bits of production and show that are worthy of giving your time to or books or anything why rewatch something that's at best a pretty mediocre compromise.
"Game of Things" is also a good replacement for CAH, it's the same as "Say Anything" except it's pencil and paper.
The ultimate way to go is to just play Quiplash on the Jackbox app, super simple, just need a phone. Scratches all the same itches.
A replacement for Catan: Raccoon Tycoon. The fun of gathering resources, but you get to choose your resources rather than rely on a dice roll. Plus, the values of the resources fluctuate throughout the game base on choices made by the players. The art is also super well done and adorable.
the thing that makes monopoly take so long, is that everyone ignores the auction mechanic. i think if you actually use the auction rule, it probably would only run about 60 mins like the box says.
It does - I played once with my niece and used it, and the properties get sold quickly, just a couple runs around the board. Removing the "Free Parking" lottery house rule also helps a lot, because that's just a catch-up mechanic that just keeps people in the game long after they should have lost.
@@KingBobXVI Yeah, that's exactly it. In general, any "house rules" that serve to give people more money just end up prolonging the game (even though it feels good in the moment when you get that money). The game can't end until everyone except the winner gets out; the more money floating around makes it take longer to get to that point.
But that's also another big problem with monopoly; that you get out and then you just go do something else while other people keep playing. Rather than the goal being to bankrupt your opponents, I think it would be better if the goal were, like, first person to get $50,000 or whatever wins (It's been a while since I've played Monopoly, so I don't know what amount would actually be reasonable).
Bruh who tf doesn't use the auction mechanic? It's impossible to end the game if you dont use it, like not long just forever , you actually won't be able to finish it because people would make more money from the new round then they will pay to others
@@shlomoshlomo963 "It's impossible to end the game"
Yeah, people just don't finish. They play til they get bored.
Yes, but Monopoly is still a game which was designed to not be fun in order to show the flaws of capitalism.
For risk I would suggest SmallWorld. It’s the same kind of thing, troops moving around a map and battling each other, but it feels so much less random and so much more strategic.
Damn beat me to it. Small World is fantastic
I suppose Axis & Allies would be the ultimate step up. But it seems way too dense to be fun.
Personally I really love the Midgard series
Great game, improved on Vinci, which was pretty neat to start with.
Definitely second SmallWorld. Or third or fourth in this case.
Axis & Allies is alright, but it’s still wayyyy too reliant on dice. If you like that, check out Ikusa (aka Samurai Sword/Shogun I think) Small World is fantastic tho
You’re criticism of scrabble while totally valid is one of my favourite features. It allows for different strategies. E.g. my wife and I play a lot and while she is playing the letters looking for high scoring long words, I play the board looking for bonuses, blocking and extending words. We both score high and it’s a balanced challenge
@@mmm-mmm Late but - you do get a bonus, but only if you use all seven tiles in your hand (or if you play with nine tiles, then using seven, eight or nine qualifies for the bonus). The bonus is fifty points. Not the easiest thing to pull off due to some luck factors, but certainly not impossible and usually worth it.
"kid friendly game"
*literally describes betting on horse racing*
I can relate, my dad only spent time with me at the racetrack.
There's at least one Mountain Goats song about this
As an adult if you have played Camel Up you will understand why its a kid game, even with a basic understanding of statistics the game is impossible to predict due to the sheer number of outcomes, and even though there is some strategy, the winner feels as though they are always determined by luck. It is a fun game for the first or second time as an adult and then after that it is unbearable, it is one of the few board games I have given away because I will never play willingly again, much like apples to apples or cards against humanity. If you do play the game don't waste mental energy trying to strategize, just do what makes the least sense and you will probably have more fun.
It’s kid friendly. I don’t get your point
You mean camel racing?
I think the one issue with some of these choices is that they're too complicated for a lot of the people who play some of these classic ones.
They're more interesting because their depth/skill ceiling is higher, but the skill floor is also higher as a result.
100%.
Not all of them though. Beananza takes a little bit less time to explain (have you tried explaining how to build roads/cities in Catan lately?), and if you had to teach an alien Space Base or Monopoly, I would choose monopoly every time. Did you sit down and learn all of the rules of Monopoly at once, like auctioning unbought properties, or mortgaging?
@@ChiefBlueScreen I googled the two rules of Monopoly there that I didn't understand and it took me a grand total of 1 minute to update my knowledge. Maybe if I tried Space Base I'd find it really easy to understand too, but hearing the explanations of these games from him, it says a lot that he takes a minute or so to explain Battleship, and then 3 to explain Captain Sonar in a rough degree. This didn't apply to all of his alternate picks, but several of them I also felt sounded too complicated to be all that fun. But, then again, I like Monopoly.
@@Nekufan1000000 The clever thing about Captain Sonar is that each role is quite simple. So it doesn't take long for each player to learn what they need to be doing, and then you don't need to know the other 3 sets of rules to play. In fact, it adds to the flavor and fun to not have any idea what's going on with the engineer while you're just trying to chart the enemy submarine and suddenly your reactor breaks down. and everyone's yelling at the engineer.
Oh no, people might have to actually _learn something new!_ How horrible that they may be taken out of their comfort zone for a little while they learn a new, more complex game!
Scrabble do be a competition tho, we be making up words that don’t exist and try to convince each other that they do 💀
You need to expand your vocabulary lmao
@@Lumber_jocks No, that's literally how it works at competitions. IIRC, you only have a limited number of callouts, and since the English language isn't exactly consistent, it's perfectly possible to bluff a word that doesn't exist. You only don't get points for it if your opponent calls you out successfully. There's also penalties for calling out a word that turns out to be real.
So, yeah, at high-level Scrabble tournaments, making up words is a completely viable tactic.
@@SgtCookie111 Pretty sure he is referring to the sentence structure of the original reply lol. Do be and we be.....
@@BT.TexasDFW it's slang in a TH-cam comment. It's not undecipherable lol, we do be typing like that for funni
@@BT.TexasDFW they wouldnt say expand your vocabulary then...
Candy land: *is on there*
7 year old me: 👁👄👁
I’m sad because Candyland definitely influenced my aesthetic
@just a load of clownery lol both of your comments are next to eachother
@@gdtacos7082 you said that on the last one hun sksksk
@@TinyPhantomz YO LONG TIME NO SEE
HERESY
As someone in a group of friends who collectively own over 1k board games, it's nice to see a few familiar games. Though after a brief glance through comments, I haven't seen anyone mention Small World as an alternative to RISK. It's a really awesome game that still gives you that feel of commanding armies, but it's on a much smaller scale and has a lot more strategy involved due to the way the powers of races and modifiers work.
I just started my kids on simple adult games. They play kids games together, and it took some time but now they are 7, 9 and 11, and can play D&D, X-Wing, Heroscape, Imperial Assault, and Arcadia Quest.
I overheard them talking about Legend of Zelda lore, and other times arguing Pokemon rules and tossed out any notions of needing simplicity.
Yeah I think people really underestimate how complicated a kids knowledge can get. Trying to hear 11 year olds explain Fortnite makes my head spin, I just don't get it haha. You've just got to be careful because what kids are actually often pretty bad at is sticking with something they don't get. If they don't like it, they'll probably want to quit. You've got to be willing to put in a bit more work than with an adult but that's not bad at all.
As a replacement for Clue, my friends and I have really enjoyed Cryptid! It's still a deduction game, but each person has a clue to where the treasure is on a map. Your goal is to figure out everyone's clue that leads to this specific spot on the map where the treasure is. There's also an advanced mode if your friends are big brained and need a bigger challenge. Highly recommend!!
Cryptid taught me that I am very, very bad at deduction
Fun fact: you can play Sorry with a hand of cards! Makes it much more fun. I mean, it doesn't make it board game of the year, but it's a good time.
Yeah, that definitely adds a bit of planning to it, and removes the frustration in waiting a billion years for a fucking 1 or 2 to actually start doing *anything* and waiting for a second one to actually have some sort of strategic decision.
I used to love playing clue way back when, but nowadays, my go to game in that style has become Mysterium. Granted, its a lot less heady, but the way it incorperates the Dixit type illustrations is such a fun execution of the concept of psychics recieving visions, and the whole thing has exquisit vibes
My group plays this all the time too. It’s a great game!
Very accessible too - there's no reading so it's great for young kids.
The purpose of Candyland is to teach kids board game mechanics like drawing cards and moving tokens along a board and the concept of winning and losing, as well as social skills like learning how to take turns and how to accept winning and losing at a game.
You are deliberately removing any kind of strategy aspects to focus purely on mechanics and social skills that young children haven't learned yet.
If Candyland were actually a game that involved any strategy whatsoever, that would completely defeat the purpose of Candyland. The kid would just lose every single game, get frustrated not understanding "what they're doing wrong" and never actually learn.
His point isn’t that the game is bad for kids, his point is that as an adult, if you want the same feel but with a bit for fun, you should play the other games he recommends. In some ways, what he recommended also is better for kids once they reach a certain age.
At the same time, it's basically not even a game. As it could feasibly play itself. I think you are right that its a good tool to teach the *procedure* of playing a board game, but I think people who think that it can capture the full joy of a board game experience are the kind of people who think all games are only for children.
Pretty sure you can get any cooperative game (that's not too complicated) and it'll work better than candy land. If the kid gets stuck, then you can go over and help them.
Now they learn everything candy land can give AND how to play other games in general
Well if you don't make any decisions then what is to learn from?
What about the parent teaching them what they could improve?
@@WPeter96 Candyland isn't made for adults, it is made for young children. To say that it "sucks" as the title of the video says is a bit much.
Risk is a game that I always wanted to play as a kid, but nobody ever wanted to play it with me.
I think the reason I kept on loving it is because I never got to play it enough to get sick of it 🤣
The issues I have with replacing Clue this way, is that I find the fun of Clue is in the detective-who-dunnit narrative as well as the detection vs wild speculation strategy. The question being just how few clues do I need to see and still win.
I could see why someone who's into logic puzzles would be disappointed by Clue, but there's the aspect of psychology to it as well.
Try Cryptid, Basically Clue with no moving. Lots of scenarios that gives lots of replayability with some more possibilities that clues can cover (as well as advanced scenarios that include negative "Can not be" clues). One clue per player and placing blocks on the hex-based map means you can try to bluff or hide your clue for as long as possible while deducing the answer from your opponents.
For lore, it's basically natural investigators looking for a cryptid. Kinda like Bigfoot of something, but you need to find out where it lives.
I also like Clue's theme, but Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective achieves something similar while being the vastly better game, in my opinion. It's thematic, requires intuition and deduction, and is cooperative. Only issue is it's out of print and only has a limited number of cases...
Good replacement for Clue is Awkward Guests. Check it out.
You can also just play clue with no movement, and it's a substantially better game. On your turn, you can either 1) go to a room or 2) make a suggestion / accusation in the room you are in via the usual rules (still moving the accused to your room).
You could try Clue FX. It’s computerized and It has rooms and locations, but you can jump to any of them on your turn, and you learn clues from people you encounter at those locations. So of these characters are constantly moving around the board, but you only know where they are or where they’re going if you’re on that space. Adds a ton of randomness, and takes out all the rolling crap. WAY better game.
The short hair timeline and long hair timeline are beginning to merge...
I'm not up on the lore what is this short hair long hair business
@@johnh6065 the king dragon skits lore
What if the short hair timeline was actually a flashback all along?
One game I have found similar to Tokaido is Patchwork, where the concept of “you take turns until you’re ahead” still applies, but the players are collecting little Tetris pieces to try and completely fill their own 9x9 board, and usually the bigger or more versatile a piece is, it sends you farther forward. Both great games, this one just seems simpler, though still fairly difficult to stay two steps ahead. There’s also some whole elements I haven’t talked about, so go look it up if anyone’s interested.
Board game: has dice rolling
SungWon: SO YOU HAVE CHOSEN DEATH
Another risk replacement is Small World. You pick different special power and fantasy race (elves, dwarves, giants, orcs, etc.) combinations and try to conquer the land. Very fun
Totally agree! Small world is better in every way
Agreed, and the dice rolling is minimal.
@@BlankTH Yeah, I like how the results of combat are almost entirely predictable, with just that little randomness at the margin.
Came here to say this
Fun fact about monopoly:
The reason why you don't find it fun might be it's intentionally designed not to. The inventor of monopoly was completely against capitalism and tried to educate the public through monopoly how bonkers, unfair and un-fun capitalism is for those on the losing side.
Ironically, the people liked the gambling aspect and thrill of ripping your family's and friends' money off in a never ending circle until everyone basically is homeless while you have all the money in the world.
@Dylan Turner People like to be jerks. There's no thrill or fun in harmony. :/
There's a reason there aren't any movies where everything is just fine from beginning to end.
Yeah, and if you did even the barest of research called "looking at Wikipedia", you'd realize it wasn't anti-capitalism, it was anti-monopolization, which, you know, right in the name and all.
@@thewanderingmistnull2451 It is about capitalism.
Monopolies are simply a symptom of that.
No need to be rude, especially when you're not even adding anything to the conversation.
@@Leon_der_Luftige Monopolies are a problem no matter what economic system they arise in. Communism is basically making EVERY industry into a monopoly run by the state. And it was devastating for the people.
@@mnorth1351 That's not how communism works, but ok.
A game my friends and I have really liked a lot for quite some time now is King of Tokyo. It’s kinda like strategic Yahtzee with a Godzilla theme. Obv a lot of dice rolling but the outcomes allow you to take a lot of different approaches to winning. It’s also one of those game that the more you play it the more you can start to implement your own rules to make it more strategic. Big recommend from me 👍
"Classic Board Games that Suck"
I basically just watched this video to make sure we all recognize that Monopoly is shit...
Milton Bradley cried all the way to the bank.
And Risk
@@LeFranzMan Even with fond childhood memories of playing Risk I have to agree with you. It's just not a good game.
Yeah, I hate Monopoly
most people play it incorrectly, making it worse than it needs to be
Saying "if you like battleship, try Captain Sonar" is like saying "if you like playing catch with your friend, you should try setting up a local football league".
It might be true, but there are a lot more rules, time, and people involved for that to be a real replacement.
I LOVE this analogy lmaoooo
Another deduction game along the lines of clue, but without the rolling of dice, is Cryptid. Very fun if you like the pure competitive deduction aspect of clue, although the deductive puzzles are generally much harder than clue so it’s not as good for casual audiences.
You talked me into Blood Rage and Tokaido, they sound right up my alley.
Another great alternative to Apples to Apples/CAH style games is Dixit. It’s one of my favorite tabletop games ever. No matter who I introduce it in my family or circle of friends, they always end up loving it and the expansions almost double as collectibles because of the beautiful art.
I've heard good things about Blood Rage but never played it, but I can confirm that Tokaido is a GREAT GoL replacement. Much like Life, you'll blow through almost all of the content in one playthrough, but that's not really what it's about. It's about having a nice journey, and I do quite consistently each time it's busted out.
1000% agree on Dixit as an Apples to Apples/CAH style game. Personally what I like about it is that it manages to remove the arbitrariness of the judge (where one person gets to capriciously decide which card wins each round) while retaining fact that there's no mechanically "correct" play since correctness relies on aesthetic/narrative sense. It really retains the creativeness/cleverness/humanness of the genre while feeling much less arbitrary.
Dixit has become one of the games that is always in the game bag. Everybody who tries it loves it. Everyone loves to gaze at the art on the cards. A truly relaxing and delightful game.
I like Dixit because it's very chill and creative and doesn't rely on shock value like Cards against Humanity.
I love Dixit! The friends who introduced me to it said they had a friend who was an engineer who hated it because of the abstraction aspect. He was never on the same page as anyone else.
For clue I reccomend Paranormal investigators. I player is a murder victim, and rhe other player's ask the ghost questions about the murder using cards, depending on what card an investigator uses determine's how the ghost player tells them the answer. Answers come in the form of drawing on the investigator's back, using a charts, sculpting a pipe cleaner, charades.
That sounds exactly like "Mysterium". Are those possibly the same games?
@@1st23st4u in mysterium the ghost gives answers by giving the investogators cards with abstract art that points to the correct answer. So although the premise is the same the way the game works is different.
@@zanthiablue5254 I see. Thanks for replying!
Its really nice watching somebody talk about something they really love
Battleship: Calm guessing of coordinates
Captain Sonar: CHAOTIC SCREAMING. "WHICH WAY IS WEST!?!?!?"
I'd highly suggest monopoly deal, it's card based monopoly and it feels like it's the way monopoly was meant to be played
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. Monopoly is my favorite board game because of the trading and how much understanding the statistical probabilities of the game both improves your play and expierience. Yes there is a lot of luck with it but omg this comment hurts my soul more than the fact that ProZD doesn't like it and says it boils down to luck. ;(
It's not a board game, but I find fortune street to be a good alternative to monopoly. The addition of junctions, stock mechanics, and a dollar amount win has made it tons of fun for me who finds monopoly a little boring and it's been a lot easier for me to convince friends to play that type of game
@@Silvia.Sparks imo monopoly is still a mediocre game because of the luck and how long it takes. Even if you play with people that are somewhat competent and take it seriously it's just not that fun/interesting of a game compared to many others. Also many, many other games require as much or more statistical understanding, so it's not like that's something unique to monopoly. But hey, to each their own
@@Silvia.Sparks there is almost no skill in Monopoly. It's a roll and move that has basically no meaningful decisions. I'm not a board game snob by any means, but Monopoly has almost no redeeming qualities and was just created to amplify a lot of the issues with capitalism. Monopoly might be the only game that I would refuse to play if someone asked
@@alex8480 Well yeah Monopoly was LITERALLY created to demonstrate the inherent unfairness in concentration of wealth/land ownership, and how it inevitably snowballs.
The _entire point_ is that skill & strategy are only superficial compared to a lucky start, and ultimately futile after someone's pulled ahead. The original version could be played with an optional tax rule to show players how certain tax schemes can help mitigate the unfairness.
“Wait I LIKE THAT GAME! I love that game! You don’t like that game! SCREW YOU!” Classic. Can’t wait to try these suggestions.
PREACH cards against humanity hate. It's the same 10 jokes every single game and people talk like it's so amazing and edgy
Cards against humanity's quality is entirely dependent on the people who play it. If you have the same 10 jokes every game, it's because your group can only tell 10 jokes.
Now, one can argue that that is what makes it a bad game, that you need an end goal and a path to that end in order for a "board game" to be good.
I’d say it’s dependent on the people you play with and how many of the expansions you have so that you can actually get variety
@@cameronphenix2096 I've played it with plenty of different groups, there's just only so many cards (even with the expansions) and not all that many combinations for a given black card that are funny and make sense.
Even the expansion cards all lean very hard specifically towards edgy shock humor, which stops being edgy or shocking when it's half of the submitted answers most rounds.
I hate CAH. Its so bad and once the novelty of the shock value wears off from the edgy jokes (after like 2 games) its so boring
It’s a game that often lets people be casually racist and offensive then play it off as just a joke. I’m not a fan either.
My only experience with Yahtzee is through US family sitcoms because nobody ever wanted to play it
Yea my family stopped playing it with me about a decade ago because i ended up getting 7-10 Yahtzee's in a row.
@@xxxxxx-xc6qh Statistics say no.
@@Iamonepercent No, statistics says "extremely unlikely, but possible nonetheless".
@@Iamonepercent statistics says no but if you know how to manipulate the dice.. then yes. Also if you have badly weighted dice that can also affect the chances.
@@xxxxxx-xc6qh no, still no
Even if you have dice that have the same number on 4 out of the 6 sides, you are not getting that many Yahtzee’s in a row
Another alternative to playing Clue, which I found to be very fun, is just playing clue without the board. I was playing with some friends, and we didn’t have enough space to set up the board for the game, so we just played with the cards and it was way more fun, in my opinion.
You're not the only one. There's an official card based version of the game that works in that manner. It does have slightly tweaked rules, IIRC, but it plays like clue, but without the tedium of needing to move from room to room to collect the evidence.
A game I really enjoyed as an alternative to Risk (back when I was still living at home and had people to play board games with lol) is Smallworld. You basically pick from a pool of randomly drawn factions that get combined with randomly drawn attributes that both give you different amounts of tokens to play with and different special abilities, and then race to populate/conquer a (as the name would imply) very small map. As the turns progress you also have the option to abandon your faction to pick a new one on your next turn, so you always have to look out which new faction/attribute combinations are up for grabs and weigh whether it's worth to abandon your current one (you spend a turn and become very vulnerable to attack in exchange for the chance to go for a big sweeping move with your fresh new faction, which also may have a better set of special abilities than your current one). It's very fast-paced bc your factions' manpower doesn't last very long so after 2-3 turns switching becomes very appealing, it's a lot less drawn out and stall-y than Risk can be. The actual combat has no random element at all which I like a lot, and seeing the funky combinations and what they can do makes it very replayable.
Camel up: teaching kids gambling since 2014.
Camel up is amazing for drinking games and gambling
@just a load of clownery lol both of your comments are next to eachother
I always thought its called Camel Cup, because its a race.
@@gdtacos7082 OOP
@@DekArosaro that would make sense tho ngl
"The Mind" is a great replacement for those times as a kid when you and your best friend stared hard at each other, trying to achieve telepathy.
yeah lol
Would love a suggestion for Guess Who and Hungry Hungry Hippos
hungry hungry hippos is peak board game creation
With guess who, I would personally suggest either Codenames if you just like doing subtle mind game deduction (the duet version is great if you don't want it to be too competitive), or if you're looking for something a little more "meaty" then Decrypto is wonderful and plays really well with multiple people.
Hungry hungry hippos cannot be topped, maybe with the sole exception of Loopin Louie
For younger kids, Rat-A-Tat Cat is a memory game with a whiff of deduction/bluffing that might give you the Guess Who feel. As was also said, Loopin Louie, if you can find one, is amazing. But! They made a Loopin Chewie a few years ago that you can still find sometimes second hand. It's only three players, but if you have access to a 3D printer and Thingiverse, there's a part you can print for the base that lets' you fit a second set of "arms" and play 6 player. Search for it.
To scratch the dexterity itch, you could try Crokinole (expensive), or Flick 'Em Up.
@@kendromeda42 Good suggestions. Codenames also has Disney, Harry Potter, and I think Marvel versions if you've got young people who like those things. Cryptid is a VERY thinky buy super cool deduction. Probably not for kids.
What about mouse trap?
A good Risk replacement is “Diplomacy”. It requires cooperation from other players to overtake a country and it can be scaled to take a very long time to play the game or a much shorter game.
Yes, I played an online version with gaming friends, with EU and US time zones, so we made rounds 24h (or until everyone finished) and messaged and schemed with each other inbetween. A game could last a week or more and it was great fun :D
@Cameron Sprouse It depends. Diplomacy is a good killer of friendships, and it can take sooo much time to complete a game. Also draws are possible and easy when you know the board. So I'm not sure I would call it "fun".
A bad game for introverts though. Unless you're playing a No Press game over an email server, and then it becomes a 7 player chess game.
Very good shoutout! Also good alternative is Game of Thrones. Very similar game to Diplomacy with a bit more mechanics and there's the GoT theme, if you're into that.
I had my International Politics students play Diplomacy. A couple quotes I overheard (I was basically GMing):
“This game is the most stressful thing I’ve ever done in my life.” But also, “A bunch of the things we learned in History classes are starting to make a lot more sense now.”
Another suggestion for "The Game of Life" is "The Pursuit of Happiness." Similar feel of "look how cool my character's life was" just not random roll and move. More strategy involved.
I really enjoy "Gloom" for the "Take That!" and player-driven creative humor aspect
My favourite alternative to Risk is another good ol' classic: Cosmic Encounter! It has a very similar feel to the conquering and alliance mechanics on Risk, but has a larger emphasis on negotiation and card management, instead of just rolling for each match. It also has cards and characters that completely bend the rules of the game and make every single match unique
I think the best direct alternative to risk is axis and Allies. Most acts are not based on chance and the Factions (at least for the 1942 version) are masterfully balanced. Only combat is balanced on chance and they pull off a good balance of randomness. The only problem is it is even longer than risk.
Yeah it’s awesome! Have you played fortress America?
Yeah, Axis and Allies is a great game if you and your friends have a lot of free time. My brother and I once played a week long game that only ended because our cat used the nuclear option and knocked over all our pieces.
As a teen, my friends and I were into Axis and Allies. I have to disagree with your assessment of its balance, though, unless something in the gameplay has changed in the past 30 years.
The game starts at the high point of expansion for the Axis. And unless the Axis play incredibly smart AND the Allies play incredibly bad, then the Axis will be crushed by the Allies’ production might, just like in real life.
I’ve never been involved in a game that the Axis won.
@@lordofthemound3890 fair enough
Other recommendations:
10. Scrabble - Rummikub, Bananagrams, or Sequence
9. Battleship - Love Letter, or Star Realms
8. Clue - Mysterium, Cryptid, or Tobago
7. Catan - 7 Wonders
6. Cards Against Humanity - Utter Nonsense
5. Risk - Small World, or Champions of Midgard
4. Monopoly - Century, or King of Tokyo
3. Game of Life - Splendor
2. Sorry - Survive: Escape from Atlantis!
1. Candyland - Fearsome Floors
The MOMENT you said "This one's gonna be a little controversial", I knew it had to be Catan. 😆
Honestly my first thought was Risk. There's a lot of people out there that will die defending Risk as the pinnacle of board games.
Very late to this, but so happy to hear you mention Tokaido! It’s my favorite game, was just playing it with family around Christmas. The best thing about Tokaido is no matter who wins, everybody can get different achievements, which feels good imo.
"...and now I really miss Japan"
**Checks to see if this was filmed during quarantine**
As another replacement for life I can recommend Pursuit of Happiness. A worker placement where you make choices in life. Do I pursuit a career, start a family? Or life healthy and het some extra turns because other players die earlier than me.
The Pursuit of Happiness is almost beat for beat a grown-up, well-designed version of Life. I would recommend it to anyone, it's one of my favourite all-time games. (Tokaido is also an incredible choice!)
old video but hopefully you still see comments - I'd really love a list of top games that are quick to pick up and get going; simple rules, quick to set up, etc. I really like playing games, but I have no patience anymore for spending a bunch of time going over complex rules to figure them out initially, and it's a real pain to have to redo that every time you want to play with a new friend. Games that have straightforward or intuitive rules and don't require a lot of setup time with a bunch of pieces are very appealing for this reason, but you can only play Apples to Apples so many times. Being exposed to new games like this would be awesome, and unlike most of my board game fanatic friends, you seem good about acknowledging when games are maybe too complex/hardcore to be more widely accessible to people who maybe aren't really into board games.
Btw: Bohnanza is also a HILLARIOUS pun in german, because Bohne is "Bean" so its Beananza... heh
Bohnanza is made by a German guy, so it's intentional
I honestly never understood why people like Catan so much. It's okay, but the whole rolling dice to get resources and bricks being really hard to get really makes the game feel poorly designed. I'm really glad you had the courage to point this out.
Same! I think that if you don't have the sentimental feelings of it being your first "real" boardgame, it's pretty obvious that it's not that great. Sure compared to Monopoly or something like that it's amazing but against the newer stuff it's hopeless.
I think the best alternative to CAH for playgroups that still want that element of "cards with humor on them" is Custom CAH, for me.
There are websites for playing CAH online, and I have a great time sitting down with friends to custom build a deck with all our ideas for cards, because that personal element really makes the gameplay shine. You can make in jokes, poke fun at very specific things (or aspects of your fellow players, if that's the type of group you're in), and make references that would never be in a commercially sold game.
Quiplash on the Jackbox Party Packs is still generally better for this, but "custom CAH decks online" are free and Quiplash isn't, so it's an option.
Also don’t have to be in person lol
You hit "There's two games I can reccomend you" in the Monopoly section and I went "So help me god if one of these isn't Machi Koro..." and then you immediately said it, shutting me down preemptively. I laughed pretty hard, thank you.