I love my big games, but sometimes you don’t need a big game. Sometimes you want a game that can fit into a stocking and that might be easier to play, but also might just be smaller. There are a lot of great games out there that would make wonderful stocking stuffers.

Silver

This is an interesting twist of a game. In it you are trying to score as few points as possible. That isn’t interesting in and of itself, but how you do that is kind of cool. Each player has a village in front of them. A village is five cards all face down, and you know two of them. You try to get rid of cards and lower the value of the cards that are in your village. Eventually someone calls for a vote and you score.

This is played out over four different rounds of villages and at the end, the person with the fewest points wins. Some cool things are the powers that the cards have, and also that to call for a vote you need less than five cards in your village. To get rid of cards you need to trade in two cards of the same number for another card. So you plan out a lot in this game and hope for the right cards.

Cartographers

There’s a roll and write on the list, no shock there. A lot of them come in nice small packages. And Cartographers does as well, though now there is a big box. In Cartographers you are making a map, hence the name. But it is a heavier and more thinky roll and write than a lot of them.

The big reason is how the scoring works. You score for surrounding some things and getting coins, but most of your scoring will come from the scoring cards. Cartographers is played over four seasons and each season scores two of the scoring cards. Spring scores A and B, and then you wait all the way until winter which scores D and A before you score A again. So how much do you focus on A to start, and how do you balance the scoring. And there are monsters which are negative points and fun as well.

Ohanami

Ohanami is a great little game that is very simple to play. You draft two cards and you add them to any of three columns in front of you. The cards need only be higher or lower than the numbers in that column. While it might be very simple, there is some strategy in the scoring. Certain cards score in certain rounds. And the further you get into the game, the more cards score. So getting some cards early improves the value of them versus later in the game.

Ohanami plays well at all player counts, 2 through 4, but the game play does change. A two player game offers much more strategy in what you draft. You draft two cards out of a 10 card hand, then pass, and when you get your first hand back it’ll have six cards. So you can plan and try and strategize to take cards your opponent might want more. Versus with four players you get the first two and last two from a hand.

Medium

Medium is the party game on the list. And it is a fun one. You take turns and are paired up with another player. You play down a card each and then try and come up with the same word that goes between them. If they don’t match, then the new words are used to match.

The game is really clever and can be really tricky. Or you can try and play down two words, since it’s one person and then another person who picks their word, to make it easier. I like to make it trickier, but that’s just me. And it’s a good one for a lot of players because it pushes people to think about the other person they are playing it and leads to a lot of laughs.

Claim

Claim is the trick taking game on the list. The Crew is another one that people will think of, I just haven’t played it. Claim is a two player trick taking game that is played over two hands. The first hand is trick taking to build your hand for the second hand of the game. Then you are trying to collect majority in the different suits and whomever has majority in most wins the game.

Claim is a very fast trick taking game and it’s one with a few expansions to it. The expansions basically add more suits. Why, because suits are different fantasy races. And each has their own powers. The dwarves, for the second hand, the loser collects them. Zombies are used for scoring from the first hand. So it changes up the game a lot in a good way.

More Stocking Stuffers

There are a lot of great games. I have some on my solo list that can work as well. Especially stuff like A Gentle Rain or Orchard. But if the person already likes CCG’s (collectible card games) or LCG’s (living card games) packs for both of those would work really good as well, so Marvel Champions.

What are some of your go to stocking stuffer/small games? Are there any that you want to get?

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