10 Board Games I actually like

Top Ten Tuesday is currently hosted by Artsy Reader Girl and has weekly topics for bloggers to respond to and share a love of all things books! I love thinking up my responses and the weekly blog hop to see what everyone else wrote!

This week’s prompt is a non-book freebie so I thought I’d finally share another hobby. Well, board games are more of a shared hobby I picked up because my husband loves them! I wouldn’t have played any of these if I’d not met him!

In fact he loves boardgames so much goes on an annual trip to spend 24/7 playing them with his friends! I get invited but it honestly sounds like hell to me. My limit is about 2 hours with a board game and then I’m good for at least a week!

I don’t enjoy particularly competitive, complicated and stressful games, so all the games I like are simple to play, short and ideally cooperative. I also prefer everything 2 player!

1. Patchwork is a simple two player competitive game where you make a quilt with the aim to have the least amount of holes! It’s pretty quick to play and I’m better at it than my husband!
2. Calico is another tile playing game where you’re trying to make a quilt that will attract cats to sleep on it! It can play 1 to 4 and is simple and deceptively stressful, and I always enjoy it. I also play the video game version a lot of Steam!
3. Skyteam is two player cooperative game where you play pilot and co-pilot landing a plane.
4. DorfRomantik is another tile placing game that you can play solo or cooperative. You’re just building a nice landscape with some towns and trains, it’s very relaxing! This was originally a video game and was adapted to a board game format.
5. Carcassonne is a classic competitive tile matching game where you build walled cities. It inspired our visit to IRL Carcassonne!
6. Parks is a really chill and very pretty little game where you just take a hike through some North American parks! I like it best at 2 player, it drags with too many.
7. Ticket to Ride is a classic competitive board game where you make train routes. It’s fun to play with family, and I even endure the Legacy version with my husband’s and his friends… Which was fun for a bit but took 12 games and got too stressful!
8. Cascadia is another competitive tile matching game, that’s similar to Calcio but you’re making habitats to attract animals.
9. Botany is the only game I’ve backed on Kickstarter (I had a moment of madness) and it’s an enjoyable competitive board game where you play Victorian flower hunters. This does take longer to player than the rest of this list.
10. Forbidden Desert is a cooperative puzzle game where you work as a team to explore and then escape from a desert. Really fun! There is a series of these but Desert is the best.