Board Games for Pandemic Boredom

(Mural by Roid Design)

Well, looks like we’re returning to sheltering-in-place. The colder weather is coming in, days are getting shorter, and we have an unusual holiday season ahead of us. So, I figure many people will be – like me – spending more time indoors with their immediate household.

What board games do you enjoy to pass the time playing or just change up your daily activities with? Here are my top 5 for adults and top 5 for with children. Also, not all of them are strictly a “board” game.

For adults:

1. Arkham Horror. A cooperative adventure game set in the fictional town of Arkham, Massachusetts, where you play together as various characters known as investigators (doctors, P.I.’s, librarians, professors, gangsters, salespersons, trust-fund kids, etc.) tasked with stopping the invasion of H.P. Lovecraft Cthulu-like monsters. It’s a long game, but extremely fun if you’re a fan of mysteries, horror, and weird history.

2. Pandemic. Another cooperative board game where you play various roles to stop the outbreak of four different diseases around the world. It’s a shorter game that is very accessible for other people and offers some useful lessons as we navigate our own, all too real pandemic. In fact, the game was originally based on the 2002-2004 SARS outbreak.

3. Cards Against Humanity. A game where you’re encouraged to be as horrible a person as possible. The game is simple – each round, one player asks a question from a black card, and everyone else answers with their funniest white card. Whoever gets to 5, 10, or whatever number you want to play till wins. The expansion packs add some flavor with current events, personalities, and other relevant topics.

4. Settlers of Catan. A multiplayer board game where players take on the roles of settlers, each attempting to build and develop holdings while trading and acquiring resources. Players gain points as their settlements grow; the first to reach a set number of points, typically 10, wins. It’s a simple game once you start playing, but offers endless opportunities for variations of resources, strategies, and outcomes based on the luck of the dice.

5. Ticket to Ride. A railway-themed board game where you collect and play train car cards to claim train routes across the map. Points are earned based on the length of the claimed routes, whoever completes the longest continuous railway, and whether the player can connect distant cities that are determined by drawing ticket cards. The original version features a real map of the US and Canada as the setting. It’s a strangely addicting game with a number of equally fun expansions to keep things fresh.

For with children:

1. Lotería. A traditional game of chance, similar to bingo, but using images on a deck of cards instead of numbered ping pong balls. Every image has a name and an assigned number, but the number is usually ignored. Each player has at least one tabla, a board with a randomly created 4 x 4 grid of pictures with their corresponding name and number. Players choose a tabla to play with, from a variety of previously created tablas, each with a different selection of images. The deck is composed with a set of 54 different cards with a picture on it. To start, the caller (cantor, or singer) shuffles the deck. One by one, the caller picks a card from the deck and announces it to the players by its name, sometimes using a verse before reading the card name. Each player locates the matching pictogram of the card just announced on their board and marks it off with a chip or other kind of marker. The winner is the first player that shouts "¡Buena!" right after completing a tabla or a previous agreed pattern: row, column, diagonal or a pozo. It’s a wonderful way to play Bingo while also learning Spanish.

2. Taco Vs. Burrito. A super strange card game where players compete to create the weirdest, wildest taco or burrito. Players draw cards to add ridiculous ingredients to their meal, such as old sushi or hot yogurt; as well as certain actions cards, such as tummy aches or a hot sauce boss, that can increase or decrease the value of your meal. There’s also some other surprising cards that add twists to the game, such as a Health Inspector or Order Envy. The game goes on until the draw pile is gone and the player with the most points wins.

3. Jenga. Still a classic game of skill and architecture where you remove blocks from a tower in order to continuously create a taller and more unstable structure. In my favorite version, playing with pennies for each block to place and losing pennies for every block you collapse adds an easy incentive to the competition.

4. Candy Land. Another classic game that is especially great for kids as young as 3 years-old to play. The ridiculousness of how much the luck of the draw determines the winner is all part of the fun, teaching kids about setbacks, colors, rules, and rewards.

5. Hungry Hungry Hippos. (Yes, I clearly have a nostalgia factor for why so many of these classic games are on the list.) We all know it. We all loved it. We all probably still love it, actually. The game board is surrounded by four mechanical, colorful, plastic hippopotamuses operated by levers on their backs. When the lever is pressed, the hippo opens its mouth and extends its head forwards on a telescopic neck. When the lever is released, the head comes down and retracts. Colored plastic marbles are dispensed into the board by each player, and the players repeatedly press the lever on their hippo in order to have it "eat" the marbles, which travel down from under the hippo into a small scoring area for each player. Once all marbles have been captured, the player who has collected the most is the winner.  What’s not to love?

Anyhoo, feel free to share your favorite board games, or even just the honorable mentions that you think people should know about. Meanwhile, have some fun and stay safe!

Take note and take care.