Top 5 Easy to Learn and Play Board Games
One category that I think gamers often overlook is board games that are easy to learn and play. I find, though, that they are great board games for my game nights. Often times I want to just into playing a game and that’s it. It might be knew, but if I can get board games to the table faster, the more games that I can play. So here are five easy to learn and play board games.
Top 5 Easy to Learn and Play Board Games
5. Gasha
All of the games are going to be small on this list. Gasha is one that has a fun theme because you are just doing basic set collection. But the set collection has an element of push your luck to it. You know what you might get, but it’s a few different options. So when you are pulling two cards, will you get what you want. And will they help you complete a set to be able to start scoring points.
But Gasha isn’t a push your luck game. You make a decision based off of what is available to you. There is some risk in that, but it’s minimal. And the game is light fast and fun, so if you don’t draw what you want, you might find that you just play it again.
4. Lucky Numbers
Have you played the classic game Rack-o? Lucky Number is kind of like that. In Lucky Numbers you want to get your numbers going low to high all four of the columns and rows. You either draw a tile and add it to your board or discard it. Or you take a discard tile and add to your board. This game is lucky, but it’s fun because it’s so simple and it feels like a nostalgic game in what it does.
I already taught you how to play Lucky Numbers. And each game only takes a few minutes, especially at lower player counts. More players it is going to take longer. But that is going to be true for a lot of these games on the list.
3. Point Salad
Point Salad falls into this category as well. This one I feel like has a bit more going on with it, mainly because you get to choose a lot. You decide to either take two cards to use in your scoring tableau or a card to use for scoring. But that’s the complexity of the game. The trick comes in that the scoring is on the back of the vegetable cards for your tableau. So if you pick a card it’ll flip over scoring cards. So when do you just need to take that scoring card because it won’t come back around again?
This one probably has the biggest brain burn element to it. And because of that at higher player counts it won’t be the fastest game. Two and three players it’ll fly by. But with more it’s going to slow down and the luck element of the game is going to go up.
2. Mind Up
Then we have Mind Up. This one is working for me consistently. I like it because it’s simple, play down a card and get a card from the middle. But everyone plays down a card at the same time. And then in numerical order you get the card that matches your spot.
The game adds in a bit of complexity with it’s scoring and set collection element. But not so much that it isn’t a five minute or less teach. But as you collect cards they go into scoring slots. And they go from left to right. So if you grab a blue card on the first turn it’ll always go in the first spot whether it’s worth one point or five points. And each card in that spot scores that number of points. It’s very easy to show with the game so I love that about it as well.
1. Mountain Goats
Finally is Mountain Goats. This is one that I learned to play on BGA (Board Game Arena) but now love to play in real life with people as well. The game play is so simple, roll four dice and move up on the mountain. You do that by combining or using dice to move up on columns from 5 to 10. So it’s harder but a shorter path to get to the top with 10 and start collecting points. Of course, if another mountain goat makes it to the top as well, they are going to knock you down. So you may need to start that climb over again.
There is a fair amount of luck in this game. And the game tries to mitigate that some. If you roll more than one die landing on the one face, you can change them so you only have one die on a one. Otherwise it could get really punishing. You might even want it to happen so you have less luck. But the overall game is a nice balance of luck and seeing how long you can stick at top of a column and score points.
Final Thoughts
I see more games on my shelf that would fit into this category as well. Things like Cafe Barras and Draftosaurus are great in this category as well. And then others like Skyrockets, Ecosystem, and a ton of roll and write games would work as well.
I did intentionally skip all my roll and write board games. While I own more complex ones as well as easy to learn and play ones, a lot fall into that category. So I think that I talk about them enough when I talk about board games because I do a lot of roll and write talk. And roll and writes are one of the more common games that I play on Malts and Meeples YouTube, so you can check them out there.
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