Two Players
Given that some of you might not have enough people in the house for more than a two player game, there are a number that are pretty much ideal for two (although quite a few of the others I recommended last time including Exploding Kittens and Tsuro work well with just two as well).
Hive is a chess-like strategy style game in which you move different insect pieces (each with their own rules for moving, much like in chess) in order to surround your opponent’s queen bee. It’s pretty simple to learn and one that is quite tricky to master in terms of strategy. I like it but am very bad at it.
Pixit is a fun two player in which you throw dice which have patterns of black and white blocks like pixels and have to be the first to use those shapes to match the shape on a chosen card. First person to finish calls a halt to the building, the person with the most dice matching wins. It’s a nice fun quick one.
Patchwork is one of those games that sounds incredibly tedious as you describe it but is actually a lot of fun. Basically, you compete to get different shaped patches of cloth in order to fill up your quilt - points earned at the end for spaces filled and lost for empty spaces. Yes, a game about building a quilt sounds dull as dishwater but, trust me, it’s enjoyable.
More Card-Based Games
Fluxx comes in many varieties (you can get Star Trek, Monty Python, Batman and many other versions) but the core set up is always the same. You start with two rules - pick a card, play a card - but for there on the game can start changing. You can lay down Goals which is how you win the game (but other people can lay down a new one the next turn so it might not help you) and you can lay down New Rules, changing the basics of the game, potentially making it more complex as you go along. (Side note - it was designed by two former NASA scientists.)
Chrononauts is a game in which the cards are laid down to form the board so it makes for a quite a handy travel game. In it, you play time agents trying to create a certain number of paradoxes or gather certain artifacts before the other player. The board is composed of cards representing different events in history which can be flipped to show something different. The fun comes from trying to create a number of flipped and non-flipped years whilst competing against other players who may need the opposite to you.
Cooperative Games
Not all board games need be competitive though. There are a large number of games out there in which you play together as a team in order to beat the board. Usually the jeopardy comes from the fact that, if one of you dies, the game is over so there’s a vested interest in making sure you work together. One of the most famous of all is called Pandemic but a) I’ve not played that one yet and b) not sure that’s a distraction at the moment...
Forbidden Island/Desert/Sky - Three games with the same basic mechanic - you have to work together to discover components in order to escape before the island floods / sandstorm covers everything / floating platform crashes. There’s some nice variation in each game to make it worthwhile playing the different version but they’re a good introduction to the world of cooperative games.
Burgle Bros takes a little bit of setting up but is great fun. You play the part of thieves attempting to crack the safe on each floor of a three storey building before escaping, all the while avoiding the prowling security guards. It’s a really nicely designed game - it fits in a compact box but takes up a whole tabletop once properly set out.
There you go, a few more non-Trivial Pursuit based options to vary up the family game night (in between Zoom quizzes and streaming theatre)...
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