Board Games

PLAYERS: 3-4
AGE RANGE: 10+
PLAYING TIME: 60-120 min.

DESCRIPTION: "Your adventurous settlers seek to tame the remote but rich isle of Catan. Start by revealing Catan's many harbors and regions: pastures, fields, mountains, hills, forests, and desert. The random mix creates a different board virtually every game. No two games are the same! Embark on a quest to settle the isle of Catan! Guide your settlers to victory by clever trading and cunning development. Use resource combinations- grain, wool, ore, brick, and lumber-to buy handy development cards and build roads, settlements, and cities. Acquire your resources through trades, cards, or lucky dice (even outside your turn). But beware! Someone might cut off your road or buy a monopoly. And you never know when the wily robber might steal some of your precious gains!" --Amazon

PLAYERS: 2-8
AGE RANGE: 14+
PLAYING TIME: 15 min. +

DESCRIPTION: "Codenames is a social word game with a simple premise and challenging game play. Two rival spymasters know the secret identities of 25 agents. Their teammates know the agents only by their codenames. The teams compete to see who can make contact with all of their agents first. Spymasters give one-word clues that can point to multiple words on the table. Their teammates try to guess words of their color while avoiding those that belong to the opposing team. And everyone wants to avoid the assassin. The game works very well with 4 players if you prefer to guess without help. Or you can add more players if you prefer lively discussion. There is also a cooperative variant where a single team tries to achieve the highest score they can by playing against the game itself." -- Manufacturer's site.

PLAYERS: 4 or more
AGE RANGE: 10+
PLAYING TIME: 'as long as you like'

DESCRIPTION: "Discover a new means of communication in Concept, an easy-to-learn but frequently challenging party game. Using a board covered in icons, you and your fellow players attempt to silently convey concepts such as 'Dinosaur', 'Eiffel Tower', or 'Sigmund Freud'. Each player takes a turn conveying a concept as the others guess at it. You can compete as individuals or in teams, and you can play until a player or team collects twelve lightbulb-shaped victory tokens, or you can keep going as long as you like." -- Manufacturer's site.

PLAYERS: 2
AGE RANGE: 6+
PLAYING TIME: 10 min.

DESCRIPTION: "Challenge a friend to disc-dropping fun with the classic game of Connect 4! Drop your red or yellow discs in the grid and be the first to get 4 in a row to win. If your opponent is getting too close to 4 in a row, block them with your own disc! Whoever wins can pull out the slider bar to release all the discs and start the fun all over again!" -- Amazon

PLAYERS: 2-5
AGE RANGE: 7+
PLAYING TIME: 10-20 min. rounds

DESCRIPTION: "Exploding Kittens is a card game for people who are into kittens and explosions and laser beams and sometimes goats. In this highly-strategic, kitty-powered version of Russian Roulette, players draw cards until someone draws an Exploding Kitten, at which point they explode, they are dead, and they are out of the game -- unless that player has a defuse card, which can defuse the Kitten using things like laser pointers, belly rubs, and catnip sandwiches. All of the other cards in the deck are used to move, mitigate, or avoid the Exploding Kittens. Exploding Kittens is the most-backed crowd funded project ever, the most-funded game in the history of Kickstarter, and has paved the way for peace and tranquility in the modern world." -- Amazon

PLAYERS: 2-4
AGE RANGE: 10+
PLAYING TIME: 30 min.

DESCRIPTION: "Dare to discover Forbidden Island! Join a team of fearless adventurers on a do-or-die mission to capture four sacred treasures from the ruins of this perilous paradise. Your team will have to work together and make some pulse-pounding maneuvers, as the island will sink beneath every step! Race to collect the treasures and make a triumphant escape before you are swallowed into the watery abyss! The latest creation by cooperative game master, Matt Leacock who created the best seller Pandemic." -- Amazon

PLAYERS: 2-6
AGE RANGE: 7+
PLAYING TIME: 30 min.

DESCRIPTION: "Play Hedbanz, the quick question game of “What am I?” Ask “yes” or “no” questions to figure out if the cartoon on your head is an animal, food or man-made object. Be the first player to guess what you are and win! Hedbanz – the game where everybody knows by you!" --Amazon

PLAYERS: 2
AGE RANGE: 8+
PLAYING TIME: 10-30 min.
"Players compete in this chess-like game to keep their queen bee from being surrounded while trying to surround their opponent's bee. Each player has eleven pieces of five different types, with each type moving in a different manner." --Manufacturer's site.

PLAYERS: 2-4
AGE RANGE: 4+
PLAYING TIME: 15 min.


Description: Players help the owls fly back to their nest before the sun comes up. Play a color card and fly to that space. Draw a sun card, and you’re one step closer to the daylight. Help all the owls get home before the sun rises and everyone wins! The game is easy enough for first time game players and the game can be made infinitely more challenging simply by adding more owl tokens into the game. This allows the game to age with the child or for older kids (or adults) to play with younger kids. INCLUDES: 1 game board, 6 owl tokens, 1 sun token, 14 sun cards, 36 color cards and instructions-- Manufacturer site.

PLAYERS: 2-4
AGE RANGE: 8+
PLAYING TIME: 30 min.

DESCRIPTION: "Add cards to a grid, making sure that color, shape and number are either all the same or all different across the line. Sounds easy but as the grid expands, so do the possibilities. Whoever sees the opportunities will seize the win. Iota - the pocket-sized game that's big time fun." -- Manufacturer's site

PLAYERS: 2 and up
AGE RANGE: 6+
PLAYING TIME: 30 min.

DESCRIPTION: "The suspense is building — and so are you! Carefully pull a wood block out of the tower and place it on top. It’s easy at first, but as more blocks get pulled, the tower starts to get unsteady…and you’ll be on the edge of your seat just trying to keep it from falling! Stay cool, stay calm and stay steady, because the last player to complete their turn before someone makes it topple, wins!" -- Amazon.

PLAYERS: 2-4
AGE RANGE: 8+
PLAYING TIME: 15 min.
"In Kingdomino, you are a Lord seeking new lands in which to expand your kingdom. You must explore all the lands, wheat fields, lakes, and mountains in order to spot the best plots. But be careful as some other Lords also covet these lands...

Dominoes with a kingdom building twist. Each turn, connect a new domino to your existing kingdom, making sure at least one of its sides connects to a matching terrain type already in play. The game mechanics for obtaining the tiles is clever: the order of who picks first depends on which tile was previously chosen. Make sure to secure tiles with crowns- these royal treasures help to multiply the worth of your kingdom at the end of the game! The game ends when each player has completed a 5x5 grid, and then points are counted based on number of connecting tiles and crowns." --Amazon

PLAYERS: 1-4
AGE RANGE: 8+
PLAYING TIME: 20 min.
Numbers aren't worth anything in NMBR 9 unless they're off the ground floor and looking down from above.

The game includes twenty cards numbered 0-9 twice and eighty tiles numbered 0-9; each number tile is composed of squares in some arrangement. After shuffling the deck of cards, draw and reveal the first card. Each player takes a number tile matching the card and places it on the table. With each new card drawn after that, each player takes the appropriate number tile, then adds it to the tiles that they already have in play, with each player building their own arrangement of tiles.

The new tile must touch at least one other tile on the same level along one side of a square. A tile can also be placed on top of two or more other tiles as long as no part of the new tile overhangs the tiles below it; new tiles placed on this same level must touch at least one other tile, while also covering parts of at least two tiles and not overhanging.

Once all the cards have been drawn and the tiles placed, players take turns calculating their score. A tile on the bottom level — the 0th level, if you will — scores 0 points; a tile on the 1st level above this is worth as many points as the number on the tile; a tile on the 2nd level is worth twice the number on the tile; etc. Whoever scores the most points wins! --Board Game Geek.

PLAYERS: 2-4
AGE RANGE: 8+
PLAYING TIME: 45 min.

DESCRIPTION: "As skilled members of a disease-fighting team, you and the other players work together to keep the world safe from outbreaks and epidemics. Only through teamwork will you have a chance to find a cure. Pandemic is a cooperative board game in which players work as a team to treat infections around the world while gathering resources for cures. First published in 2007, the game's unique combination of cooperative gameplay, engrossing premise, and compelling design have proved a hit with everyone from hardcore gamers to casual players." -- Manufacturer's site

PLAYERS: 2-4
AGE RANGE: 8+
PLAYING TIME: 30-60 min.
"Welcome to the world of Photosynthesis, the green strategy board game! Plant and shape the ever-changing forest as you cultivate your seeds and your strategy. Take your trees through their life-cycle, from seedling to full bloom to rebirth, and earn points as their leaves collect energy from the revolving sun’s rays. Carefully pick where you sow and when you grow, as trees in the shadows are blocked from light, and from points. This game features realistic gameplay and beautiful graphics."-- Manufacturer's site.

PLAYERS: 2-6
AGE RANGE: 3+

DESCRIPTION: "The magic of the New York Times bestseller Press Here is now available in game form! Hervé Tullet has reimagined his groundbreaking book in an entirely new dimension. Players take turns completing color sequences by placing red, blue, and yellow playing pieces on one of twenty-five fabulously designed game boards. What seems like a simple choice is likely to lead to animated discussion as players come to understand the visual logic at the heart of the game. With two levels of play to choose from—so that it's easy enough for a toddler to grasp, but also complex enough to challenge older siblings and adults—this engaging game delivers hours of entertainment for the whole family." -- Amazon

PLAYERS: 2-4
AGE RANGE: 10+
PLAYING TIME: 45 min.

DESCRIPTION: "Prime climb is a beautiful, colorful, mathematical board game designed for 2 to 4 players. Roll the dice and add, subtract, multiply and divide your way to the center of the board, picking up prime cards and bumping your opponents back to start as you go. The first to land both pawns on 101 wins the game! everyone can learn to multiply and divide using prime climb's unique color coding. Inspire deeper mathematical understanding while mastering arithmetic! prime climb is a perfect game for families & schools, kids & adults. Awaken your love of math, with prime climb." -- Amazon

PLAYERS: 2-4
AGE RANGE: 6+
PLAYING TIME: 45 min.

DESCRIPTION: "Featuring a massive amount of in-game choices, including three tiles each of thirty-six possible color-symbol combinations, Qwirkle is the perfect game to hone player's tactical maneuvers, strategical planning, and forward thinking. The rules of the game are basic: simply build lines by matching tiles based on either color or shape, and score points for doing so. The ability to build complex combinations will keep children interested and engaged, and challenge them mentally. Qwirkle is playable from early ages up, allowing young children and older individuals alike to develop and hone their spacial recognition, planning, and problem solving skills. Great for family game night!" -- Amazon

PLAYERS: 2-4
AGE RANGE: 8+
PLAYING TIME: 20 min.

DESCRIPTION: "Build like a mortal, win like a God in the game of Santorini, the strategic family board game by Gordon Hamilton. The objective is simple: Be the first player to build, block, and climb your way to the top of a building three stories high. Sounds easy? Not so fast! Santorini requires tactical manoeuvring and increases in difficulty with the addition of extra powers via “god” cards. With thousands of possibilities and unlimited replay value, each round of Santorini is exciting and new! Unfold the beautiful game board and challenge your friends and family to construct gorgeous buildings! Both kids and adults can play this game that tests the bounds of mortal intelligence. Join the pantheon of winners in the game of Santorini!" --Amazon

PLAYERS: 2-4
AGE RANGE: 10+
PLAYING TIME: 90 min.

DESCRIPTION: "Put letters together, build words, add up your points and win! This Deluxe Edition of the classic game features all kinds of details Scrabble fans will love. The convenient carrying case with handle lets you take the game on the go and two slide-and-store trays ensure that your wooden letter tiles stay safe and sound. When you open the carrying case and you're ready to begin, you'll love the convenient and colorful recessed game spaces to help keep the tiles in place. Rotate the game board with ease on the six soft rubber wheels to view your next moves from every vantage point. Do you see a word your opponent hasn't seen? A special opportunity to use your tiles to build a word and earn big points? Make your move and do your best to win." -- Amazon

"One of the most celebrated games in the world can now be experienced in a two-player arena. 7 Wonders Duel takes the game play and excitement of the original and adapts it for one-on-one battles. Take control of your civilization and decide to invest in science, military or prestige. Two new ways to win will keep you on your toes and watching every move your opponent makes. If you fail to build defenses your capital city may be destroyed, but ignore technology and your people may be left in the dark ages. It's a constant tug of war. 7 Wonders Duel is an exciting new way to play the game that took the world by storm. Great for both fans of the original and those new to the hobby." --Amazon

PLAYERS: 2-5
AGE RANGE: 8+
PLAYING TIME: 30-60 min.

DESCRIPTION: "Ticket to Ride is a cross-country train adventure in which players collect and play matching train cards to claim railway routes connecting cities throughout North America. The longer the routes, the more points they earn. Additional points come to those who can fulfill their Destination Tickets by connecting two distant cities, and to the player who builds the longest continuous railway." -- Manufacturer's site