The criteria that I’m looking at is the size of the game, the complexity of the game (though that matters less), and the components of the game. To a less extent I’m going to consider the length of the game. Sometimes you just want to play a quick game.

Cribbage – Might not be the game that you expect, but it’s a fun game and one that a number of people are familiar with. I think that helps get it to the table because people will at least recognize it. It also has the small footprint because you have the board, but beyond that, you are just using a deck of playing cards, so those are easy to replace if you spill a drink on them.

Skull – Now, with this game just don’t confuse them with your coaster, but in this game you have five cardboard discs and you are playing them face down, eventually someone is going to say how many they can flip over without hitting a skull. It’s a simple push your luck game and bluffing game, but it works well and while the discs are coaster size, that is it for the game, so each person just needs a little room in front of them.

Love Letter – I’d be tempted to sleeve this game as there are only a few cards in the game, and that will keep it in better shape longer, but this simple deduction game works well as the rules for the cards are on the card. Plus there are player aids. With this game you are just playing down cards trying to knock out your opponents so that your love letter gets to the princess. There are other variations on the game as well, such as Batman Love Letter if that’s more up your alley. This game has almost no footprint.

Welcome To… – This could probably be a number of roll and write or flip and write games. I just happen to have this one. Yes, you are writing on fairly thin pieces of paper, if you wanted to make it more hearty, you could laminate them, but because it’s just a sheet you use for a single game, if it gets damp, it isn’t that big a deal as long as it doesn’t get soaked. Welcome To… does have a few cards in it as well, but you could use the box lid to protect them by setting the cards in there. It’s also a relaxed game so that you can take your time playing it, and like Skull can do a high player count, in fact, this is the going to be the highest player count game.

Zombie Dice – All you’re doing is rolling dice, keeping track of brains you’ve gotten, and hoping to roll a few more brains. But if you roll enough shotgun blasts, you can’t bank your brains, so you have to decide when to push your luck. It just has dice, and those are going to be fine around liquid. I could have put something like Farkle here as well, but in Zombie Dice you’re just keeping track of the brains that you’ve collected, so you don’t need a score sheet.

Just One – This party style game does have cards, but you just use 13 of them (I believe), and you end up with them standing in a holder most of the time. Besides that, people are just writing clues on little white boards. It’s a fast game, it’s a simple game to teach, and it’s one that basically everyone will enjoy. It’s also good because you have time for conversation while playing it. I’m tempted to recommend Stipulations, but that one you need to be able to hear each other.

The Resistance – Final one is a social deduction game, The Resistance has you going on missions to bring down the corporations. This game doesn’t need a moderator, and you have a tiny little board in the middle plus a few cards. You just decide who goes on a mission and then if the mission succeeds. You’re seeing if enough missions will be failed before enough successes happen. It’s not complex, but that makes it easy to teach on the fly.

What other board games would work well at a brewery? Kristen and I have played some big games there, but that depends on you getting a large enough table. There are games like Dice Throne that would work well, because they don’t need too much room, but they are bigger than I was trying to list, but if you try, you can play something like Dead of Winter or KrosMaster there.

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter at @NerdologistCast
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.

I actually went in there looking for a roll and write game that would accommodate a large number of players. But they didn’t have any, and I saw Just One on the shelf. It’s a game that I’ve been interested in, because it’s a cooperative party game. We got it to the table two times for that game night, so we clearly liked it.

Just One, while being a party game, does a few things differently. It follows the pretty normal trope for party games where there is a word and players are trying to guess the word. However, in this game, the person who is it picks a number, one to five, and on their card that is the word that they are trying to guess. The other players can see the word and must write down one word clues on their boards. But if any of those one word clues are duplicates, the person guessing can’t see that clue. For example, we had the word “Karate”. Two people wrote down the word “Kid” and the other two people playing wrote down “Discipline” and “Style”. We got lucky on that one, and the person guessed “Karate” but was definitely a tricky one when getting words eliminated.

The big reason for picking this game up was because we needed more games that can go to higher player counts. Technically the game is 3 to 7 players, because that’s how many player boards there are, but I think you could go higher than that. You’re going to have more clues that can’t be shown at a higher player count, so I don’t think that it should make it too much easier. While I like games like Scattergories, Sushi Go!, Wits & Wagers, Tsuro, and Stipulations, there is only so many times that you can play them. Basically, at times, how the games work, just kinds of runs their course, so it’s nice to add in some more starter games for a night to the collection.

So clearly I like this game. There are a couple of reasons that I like this game. The first being that it is cooperative. It’s rare to find a cooperative party game like Just One. Most party games are a race to points based off of guessing or team based. That’s fine, but it’s nice to have a game that you feel the tension for, but isn’t cut throat or won’t end up with one person falling so far behind, like you can in most other party games.

I also like it because while it is a word guessing game, it makes it simple. Something like Balderdash, you are writing definitions to words, or what Acronyms mean, you have to think more about it. In Stipulations, which I love, you have to write a complete Stipulation and come up with that weird, funny, or good stipulation by yourself. Here, it’s simpler, because you’re coming up with just a single word. Sure you have to think about how clever you want to go, or try and guess what one word other people might be writing down, but it’s still only a single word.

I think where this game will really shine is that kicking off a board game night or with people who don’t like to play games as much. This is the sort of party game that most everyone is going to be able to understand and play. There is a bit of reading, and there are a few words on the cards that are tricky. So I would say that is one downside to the game, there are going to be some words on cards that people don’t know. And I think, I’d preface the game by saying, if someone picks a word that someone doesn’t know, and this is by blind luck, the person picking the number can be asked to pick again.

Overall, definitely a fun game. Definitely a game that will go into that party game rotation. Was one of the highlights of gaming that night, though I did play another new game that was an interesting twist on push your luck dice games, what game was that, you’ll have to see. Just One is a game that seems like it should work in most any group, and I’d definitely recommend going and finding it online or at your FLGS.

Overall Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: C
Casual Grade: A

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter at @NerdologistCast
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.