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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What’s An Abstract Game

An abstract game is a game with no theme. Now, that’s not completely right because there are a lot of drier euro games that are euro games that really don’t have a theme. Generally an abstract game is going to be more of a puzzle or strategic game. They tend to have little luck, and give you the opportunity to strategize for a longer term plan.

More recently abstract games have been getting themes but the theme tends not to matter. It’s more that recently abstract games have been getting artwork. A lot of the older ones are very simple with plain pieces, now things like Calico has great looking cat and quilt artwork on it. But it’s an abstract because the theme really doesn’t matter.

What Do I Look For In An Abstract Game

1. Looks Good
2. Easy To Learn
3. Easy To Play
4. Interesting Decision

Looks Good

Why is this at the top of my list? Because a lot of old abstract games look ugly. And kind of like eating, you play a game with your eyes first. If the game doesn’t look appealing on the table, I’m less apt to play it. Now, it can simply be nice looking colors or high quality wood pieces, like Quoridor. It doesn’t need to be like Calico with great artwork and cute cats. But make it look good, if it looks cheap I am going to pass on it most likely.

Easy to Learn

Next, I want the game to be easy to learn. If I have a lot of things that happen on a turn, I want theme, I want reason behind why they happen. That’s why I don’t mind if a big game like Gloomhaven has a lot of things to keep track of, I can remember them better when there is a theme behind it. For an abstract game, since they are thinkier sometimes, I want it to be easy to learn and easy thing to take care of.

Easy to Play

This falls in with the previous one. I want the game to be easy to play. That means again, I don’t want much to do on my turn. Give me a few specific things to think about. Again, if an abstract game limits the randomness, I don’t want to think about 12 different moving parts to make sure they are moving together toward the right goal.

Interesting Decisions

But with that ease of plan and being easy to learn, I still do want to have interesting decisions to make. I want to feel like I can do something clever. And I want to be able to plan my turns a little in advance, or at least think of options. If I have to react too much in an abstract game that leads to analysis paralysis. And since the games are dry, I want it to move at a snappy pace.

Are All Criteria Equally Important?

I think for a lot of people, especially people who like those extremely limited luck games, they might not see all of these as important. But I think for myself, these are all equally as important. I don’t want to spend too much time on an abstract game. I don’t want that abstract game, like Chess, where I need to think 5 moves ahead. Instead, I prefer that little bit of luck in my abstract games, and the ability to think about and plan my next turn right after I’ve finished my previous one.

Let’s Do An Example

We’re going to go with Calico. You can already see that I like Calico in my TableTopTakes. But why does it work for me?

Looks Good

No question about this one. Beth Sobel’s artwork is amazing and adorable for this one. And the quality of the game is really nice. The tiles are nice and thick, the player boards are dual layer, overall this is a really good looking game.

Easy To Learn

This game is pretty easy to learn. I think the trickiest bit is teaching how the scoring tiles on your quilt work. The cat scoring and button scoring make sense, but people often miss, even when laid out, that the tiles just need to match the pattern surrounding the quilt block and they can be mixed up while doing that. It’s more a rule that people assume is there. But the game turns are really easy to learn.

Easy To Play

This game is very easy to play. While it does give you a lot to think about the cats, buttons and quilt blocks all providing scoring, turns are simple. You play a quilt block and take a quilt block. That’s it. And you can plan what you are going to play down between turns. No player can mess that up, which makes the game work really well for me.

Interesting Decisions

This game does give you some feel good moments. You can really decide what you’re going to focus on, you might go all in on cats and pay less attention to buttons and quilt blocks. But really, you can’t completely ignore everything. So when you play down that one tile that works for the cats and the quilt block, that feels clever. You do have a lot to think about as you build out your quilt and even more to think about as your options shrink.

So Calico is a strong contender for an abstract game I think for a lot of people. With the exception of teaching the quilt block scoring, I think that the rest is pretty easy. And the artwork is so amazing that the game will hook peoples interest. I think that had this game not come out in 2020, people would be talking about it more than they are. And generally, Calico has been really well received.

Will This Work For You?

Yes, I think this will work for most people. While there are some people who are deep into games like Chess, I think for most gamers, having that simpler abstract game is going to hit a better spot. Mainly because a lot of abstract games a pretty accessible because they are simpler. That means you can get it played with more people. But do note that there are some abstract lifestyle type games out there, like Chess that wouldn’t fair as well with my criteria.

What is your favorite abstract game?

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