Board games?

[FreakyFrie]

What board game is enjoyable for a nearly 15 year old but also a 11 year old.

I buy a board game ever year but I’m running out of ones that they would both enjoy.

I have all the normal ones such as cluedo, monopoly, pay day, boggle, kids against maturity, twister, battleships, connect 4 etc

It can’t be anything with much writing in so a word game as our daughter is dyslexic and struggles so it won’t be much fun for her..

Id also prefer something that doesn’t go on and on like monopoly 😂

I was thinking maybe the logo game or herd mentality?

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Dixit is a good one - it's all pictures. Also love Quacks of Quedlingberg. My 11 year old likes Splendor as well and always wins (genuinely, against us adults).

We have 11, 14 and 15 year olds and we like that arent too wordy

ticket to ride
exploding kittens
scotland yard

Really nasty horse racing game is brilliant and fits all your criteria

Love Labyrinth, Cluedo (adult version), 5 second rule, Dobble, Rush Hour. These are all popular with adults and children in our house.

Il have to look some of these up as Iv never heard of them!

Iv seen exploding kittens about but I’m not sure what it actually is.

We also have dobble which is good. I like that one.

Definitely ticket to ride. First favourite in our house

We recently stayed in an Airbnb that was packed with board games and the one we really enjoyed (as a family of 9yr old, 11yr old and adults) was called Castle Panic. So much so that my kids have asked for it for Xmas. There also seems to be several expansion packs for it too.

Popular in our house are:

Ticket to Ride
Carcassone
Catan
Wingspan
Pandemic
Stay Cool

Not board games but card based:
Monopoly Deal (much shorter than the board game)
Dutch Blitz

Dobble is great.
If you like Boggle you’ll like Bananagrams.

Exploding Kittens is the most overrated game ever.

boardgamegeek.com is your friend for games reviews.

Popular in our house (12 & 15):
King of Tokyo/King of New York
Yahtzee
Isle of Skye
Wingspan
Catan
Carcasonne

Azul- easy to learn and fun to play
Cat chaos- quick card game

I don't like things like Uno, Monopoly or Cluedo but in our house we all love Rummikub and Qwirkle. Also Shut The Box - that's very short but you can play best of 3 rounds, or best of 5 etc. My DSs like Blokus.
All suitable in terms of what you've told us about your DCs.

Blockus is simple and quick 2-4 player
catan is easy to learn too
colour brain is very simple and fun
scrawl is entertaining

Pass the pigs!

Is ticket to ride long winded? It looks complicated 😂

Quirkle

Catan and carcassone are brilliant

This looks fun. I think my daughter would like this and il still get a board game

Following

Dobble
Carcassonne
Quirkle

Quacks is great for something a bit different

Labyrinth
London game
Fart game
Silly sausage

Some great games here OP, but the newer /less mainstream games sometimes appear a lot more complicated than monopoly, cludo etc. One thing that really helps me learn new rules is to watch the 'watch it played with Rodney Smith' channel on YouTube. He runs through set up and how to play the game.

Some suggestions here are maybe a little complicated for your first game of this type, wingspan particularly is quite complicated and has different mechanics to games you've played before which might make it feel a bit challenging. Quacks of quedlingberg is a great game, but the printed instructions are poor definitely watch a video if you choose that one. Ticket to ride is great and was my gateway game 😂so I always recommend it. It probably sounds more complicated than it is, you get train routes across Europe and pick up coloured cards which allow to place little plastic trains and claim a route. The person with the most points from placing trains and completing routes wins. It's fun because it requires you to figure out different ways of getting between places and competing with your other players for the routes or finding ways around them. It probably takes about an hour to an hour and a half to play at first.

For shorter games azul and splendor are both great! They both probably take around 20 to 30 mins.
Id really recommend Azul as it's quite easy to pick up the rules and it's really fun. You pick up cute little tiles from a set of tiles available to everyone and build a sort of picture of tiles on your own board, but you are competing against the other players to pick up the tiles from a limited supply and have to think about where you place them, so for something quite simple it can be quite tactical.
Splendor is also a great option, in this one you aim to get the highest score by building up stacks of gem-themed cards. As the stacks of cards build up you become more powerful and can buy more valuable cards. There are only 3 options of things you can do on a turn so there isn't too much to remember which again makes it a nice introduction to different styles of games.

If you have an independent game shop locally they might have test copies to show you or be able to explain the rules and show you the game. With both ticket to ride and azul there are multiple versions so best to stick to the original azul to avoid buying an expension or more complicated version of the game. this one www.board-game.co.uk/product/azul/
With ticket to ride I'd recommend thr Europe map as a place to start, it feels a bit more relevant than the American map and avoids the risk of again buying an expansion that adds on to another game.

Ticket to Ride
Carcasonne
Wingspan
are the 3 favourites here.

On Youtube there are loads of different people explaining the rules of each game, or filming an actual run through of the game.

Ticket to ride really isn't complicated. I would say wingspan is a little more so, but our 8 year old manages it

Camel Up is good fun .. have played it with ages ranging from 10 to late teens to adults and all enjoyed.
Carcassonne and azul also good and not too long.