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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Lucky Numbers Solo Mode

Let me start out by saying, this isn’t a bad solo mode. But you can tell as I was playing it, I don’t find it great. Mainly because it’s very different from the actual game. And because the puzzles felt like they were lacking. It gives you a target number of moves to do it in, and I think at least once I found a faster way to do it than the game said. So the challenge isn’t there.

I compare this to something like the Relics of Rajavihara which gives you a puzzle each game to figure out. That one the puzzles were really interesting and felt like a challenge. How the game changed up what the blocks did, that felt unique and the game grew with you. In Lucky Numbers as the puzzles became harder the scale of difficulty moved up extremely slowly. So slowly that I don’t know you need anything with fewer than four moves.

That said, I am confident that for some people this is going to be great. And in fact, it would be even better of they had an app that showed you a puzzle to set-up each day. It is going to be a nice like sudoku like thing to get people’s brains working in the morning. That is not what it was for me, though. They were just pretty easy puzzles to track to a solution and it started to get repetitive for myself.

Upcoming Streams

Join me on Monday and Wednesday’s for streams. Right now on Wednesday I stream my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition. So come check that out and see what games make the list year. Monday is a wild card day. I plan to play a variety of games that are solo with a mix of some video games like Balatro as well.

Then on Friday is a special stream as well. My wife and I stream Baldur’s Gate 3. Find out what adventures our group is getting up to. We are still early in the game.

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How To Play Lucky Numbers

Lucky Numbers is a pretty simple game where your goal is to get both your rows and columns into descending order. All players play with a four by four grid. At the start of the game, four numbers are seeded from the top left corner and work diagonally down to the bottom right.

From that point on, you draw a face down clover tile and place it in your board. Or you take a face up clover tile and place it on your board. That is how turns work. Your goal is to get those columns and rows both into descending order. Whoever is the first to complete that wins the game.

What Doesn’t Work?

The game is lucky. I expect you guessed that with a name like Lucky Numbers. But Lucky Numbers is a very lucky game. I draw a tile and I get what I want, that is great. You draw a tile and you don’t, that is unfortunate. And if I draw a one and already have one, well, that means the next person is getting their ideal top left clover. So you may set up another player on your turn.

What Works?

Firstly the speed of the game is great. Now for the sake of Lucky Numbers this is not the ideal first thing to talk about. But Lucky Numbers is a filler game. And as a filler game, I want it to play quickly and it really does. A turn is simple and generally you just draw a face down tile.

I enjoy as well the puzzle aspect of the game. It reminds me of something like Rack-o, but this is being done over both rows and columns. So there is a familiar aspect to the puzzle. But it is also more than the classic game. I think that is a nice addition to it. And limiting the numbers to 1 to 20 (once in the pool per player) is a nice touch as well. Because with Rack-o you may search for one of three numbers out of 100. Here you play with a much smaller range.

The final element that I want to talk about is when you replace a number you have. I think that is where some of the choice or observance of the game comes in. Mainly, I want to put out a tile you don’t want to use. So I need to think about what I want to do for sure. Because sometimes I might give you the win if I am not careful. So maybe I need to press my luck versus take a face up tile. Or maybe hold off on swapping out a tile until I complete the rest of my board. This could be a negative in a two player game, but only if players don’t plan well.

Who Is Lucky Numbers For?

I think this is a game for people who want a filler. But not your traditional game night filler. I think it’s more of a game for people who want a filler game and play casually. It falls into the camp of games that are easy to teach my parents. They understand Rack-o. Or it is going to be a game that I can play with my kid while he is pretty young. There is no element of the game that is too complex. So it is a wide reaching game, just maybe not a heavier game night filler.

Final Thoughts on Lucky Numbers

I think Lucky Numbers is a fun game. And I see why people generally enjoy it. I also understand why people generally don’t talk about it. Lucky Numbers isn’t going to be anyone’s favorite game on Board Game Geek. But I expect a lot of people will enjoy it for what it is.

Is the game very lucky yes. But it doesn’t hide that fact. Nor is it going to be a thinky game. But if you expect it to be a Rack-o variant that offers more than Rack-o does in terms of blocking people and puzzling out what numbers are still available or not, it is better. It is just not going to be anything more than that. And it is one of those games where it is fine it isn’t anything more. Because sometimes a game should just be simple.

There is a solo mode as well that I want to play. Which is basically set-up the board and see if you can solve a swapping puzzle in the number of turns suggested. I expect that, unless my family loves the game, I’ll play through some of those and move on from the game. But that’s just because I’ll gladly play it but won’t suggest it.

My Grade: C+
Casual Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: C-

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CoolStuffInc

Dungeons and Dragons: The Yawning Portal

I don’t even know that much about this game. But it’s a theme that I like a lot, Dungeons and Dragons. And from what I know of The Yawning Portal, that’s a portal in a tavern that leads to a lot of different adventures. It’s part of the Sword Coast and Forgotten Realms setting for Dungeons and Dragons. I’m hoping for a fun, lighter, adventure style game.

TIME Stories Revolution: Cavendish

I still get basically everything for TIME Stories. This is one the new cycle now so I need to get through the first stuff, first. But it’s been a game that we’ve enjoyed a lot. And if I figure out a better storage solution, I can make it take up a whole lot less space on my game shelf. But I’m curious to play more. And even if it isn’t the most loved thing, it should be fun for my group still. We’ll see when we get this far into the series.

Jurassic World: The Legacy of Isla Nublar

Next up we have a legacy game with mixed reviews. But mixed reviews was enough to keep me from running out to get the game. I think for a lot of gamers it has been. I wonder as it goes on sale more, if more gamers or people will buy it. It’s a Jurassic Park/World park building game where you are avoiding dinosaurs and basically playing through stories around the movies, not really the movie stories. It looks like light fun, which is why it felt like the right price to get it when it was pretty heavily on sale.

Reload

Finally from CoolStuffInc we have Reload. I’ve heard very mixed things about this game as well. But I like what it is in concept. Kind of that battle arena like a Fortnite or PUBG style of game. You run around, the area gets smaller, you want to be the last person standing. It sounds like a fun time with some complexity and decision making, if you make it through the rules.

Miniature Market

Rome and Roll

Rome wasn’t built in a day, but in a short chunk of an evening you can build it up in this roll and write game. Or at least build up your gladiators, warriors, and I believe civilization as well. It’s a heavier and crunchier roll and write game. One that I want to play to see if it’s a good game for me. That, Hadrian’s Wall, and Twilight Inscription might be my heavy roll and write games.

Stranger Things: Upside Down

This one should be arriving today or so, but it’s a Stranger Things board game. And one from the designer of Pandemic. Now, it’s not just the Pandemic system. But it is a light to mid weight cooperative game. And kind of follows some of the things you expect. You do things and then bad things happen. But how the bad things happen and how many is determined by what you do. So it adds this element where you need to push to complete things. but that can cause more bad things to happen.

Lucky Numbers

Lucky Numbers is a game that I don’t know too much about. But it looks like a tile, or number, laying game where you are trying to fill out a grid in a specific way. It looks light, it has a solo mode, so one that I want to try out and see what it’s like.

My City: Roll and Build

You saw this one, potentially, already because I just played it on Malts and Meeples. Let me drop the video below, but it’s a roll and write version of the legacy game My City. I still enjoy it this way, and it makes a nice solo game.

The Quest for El Dorado

Kind of a classic game at this point, and a deck building game. I do like deck building a lot. To go along with that, it’s also a racing game. As you try and navigate a path to El Dorado as efficiently as possible. From what I’ve heard, it has some fun twists on it, which I’m here for. I like deck building a lot, but I don’t need all my deck building games to just be deck building, this one adds in more.

Arkham Horror LCG: Winifred Habbamock

I’m going to have to do a part 2 on this because this article is getting long. And there will be more Arkham Horror LCG character packs on this. I’ve started playing some with a friend, and it’s been a grand time. So I picked up some of the character packs because that is where you get some of the best cards.

Joan of Arc Expansions

This one come from Mythic Games selling off the rights to this game. It’s a bummer because I’m not sure Mythic Games is sitting in that much better of a spot. But for me it’s been a chance to grab more expansions. It’s still a game I need to table. But I like the idea of it as a miniatures style game, but with less overhead.

Omen: Heir to the Dunes

Another one I can’t say that I know that much about. I picked it up because it was on a good sale. It’s a two player head to head game. So the type that might stay in my collection. But it, and Radlands are games that I want to see how they play and if they’ll dethrone my favorite head to head game, Dice Throne.

That’s a Question

Another good sale game. This looks like a simple party game. I’m not sure it’ll be for me, but if I remember correctly it was $3 or $4 so cheap enough to take a flyer on. I don’t know that I need more party games, but I also find that party games are the ones that I rotate the most.

Robots

Robots was another game from that sale. It’s a kids type of game from what I can tell. But in a small box with cute artwork, another one where I look at it and think, why not try it. It might be a fun filler game about making silly robots. If not, it cost $3, so not a big deal.

Skytear Horde

Another one that you’ve seen on Malts and Meeples. So the video will again be below. But this is a tower defense, lane defense game. I like it because it’s just a fun experience that as you start to get into the swing of the game, it moves quickly. Yes, the learning of all the steps can take a bit, but once you’re in, it’s not too bad.

D&D Dungeon Scrawlers: Heroes of Undermountain

Finally another roll and write game. This one with again a Dungeons and Dragons theme. I want to play it, and I want to play some of my other dungeon crawling or scrawling roll and writes, but two of them, this one included, don’t have a solo mode. That’s my only bummer about the game. But a D&D based roll and write game is a theme and style I’ll gladly give a try.

And like I said, more to come. But those are some of the games that are entering into my collection. There’s been a lot coming in, which means that I need to have a decent number of them leave soon as well. Which is what will be happening this weekend.

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