Board game for 12 year old

[Noidea2024]

DS loves Board and card games. We have quite a lot already, but particular favourites include Ticket to Ride, Risk, Small World, Catan, Exploding Kittens and Unstable Unicorns. He is less keen on things like Throw, Throw Burrito.

He is getting Carcassone for his birthday, but would love to get something else for Christmas, and perhaps a card type game for his stocking.

Can anyone suggest something we have not yet come across please? TIA

Fluxx for a stocking present (Pirate Fluxx is our favourite), or something like Yahtzee, Cribbage or Bezique?

DS (14) thrashes us every time at Istanbul ... 😁
King of Tokyo and Smash Up are favourite short silly games

Kingdomino is fun and relatively quick to play.
Star Realms (a card game) is popular here.
Qwirkle is easy to learn and good for multiple ages.

Trivial pursuit family edition is good fun. If they're into that sort of thing.

There's questions for kids and then question cards for adults.

Love a board game, a few of our favourites are the Jurassic Park game, Minecraft portal dash (cooperative), ghost castle is quite fun but requires lots of set up!

Trash pandas is a good card game, we also have quite a few of the more or less card games.

Two little card games that we’ve enjoyed playing recently: Cabo and 5211. A previous player mentioned Forest Shuffle, I’ve played it four times this week and it’s fun! Big hit at our house last year was Ecosystem Savanna (and it’s not very £££).

We play a lot of co-operative games (all the players work together).

As PP have said, Forgotten Island/Desert are "lighter" versions of Pandemic.

There are also "legacy games" which you play through once but it takes many many sessions to do so. We had huge fun with "Pandemic Legacy Season 1" and if your DS (and at least one other person in your family) like fantasy/DnD type games, then I'd recommend "Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion." It's complex but a 12 y.o. should be fine.

If he likes Risk, then "Risk Legacy" could mix things up a bit! (Definitely NOT co-operative.)

A small card-based game which we enjoy is Port Royal. A really nice strategy game with relatively simple rules which takes about an hour is "A War of Whispers."

We love Perugo and Sushi Go. Great fun and perfect to transport on holidays, along with the obligatory Uno.

We played this after dinner recently. Quick and fun.

Splendour & Odins ravens are both games my 11 YO DD likes.

This one called Bohnanz is good, and easy to pack in your bag on a holiday

www.waterstones.com/product/bohnanza-original/9339111010518?sv1=affiliate&sv_campaign_id=626889&awc=3787_1730416594_70b98ed1299f1d8a9ff14ffa170696a7&utm_source=626889&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=adstrong

At 12, he might have an appetite for some slightly more complex games than some of those suggested.

Mine love:

Clank Catacombs: really fun deck-building and push your luck game - use cards to make your way around an unfolding dungeon, but get out quickly enough before the dragon gets you.

Lords of Waterdeep: competitive worker placement game, where you build a resource generating engine to complete objectives, with a nice bit of take that.

Galaxy Trucker: real time tile placement game where everyone picks tiles to build the perfect spaceship, which is then tested by various pirate attacks/meteors etc.

Calico: completely different from the others - a thinky tile placement game where you fit hexagonal “patchwork” tiles into a fixed space, whilst aiming to complete multiple competing objectives in doing so. Deceptively challenging and deeply frustrating when someone else picks the tile you are desperate for.

Mindbug: a fabulous 10-minute card duelling game with crazy Pokémon type creatures. Not complex at all, much better than Pokémon cards (and self contained) but takes real skill and is great fun.

Marking place. DD age 12 loves board and card games, I often don’t so am looking for ideas for something I won’t hate!

She likes Monopoly Deal and she is also eyeing up Catan - I know nothing about it but she says lots of her friends have it and love it.

We all LOVE outsmarted as a family and end up just playing only it now on any games nights. My 11 year old got it last Xmas.

Best small, card-based game we own is Bandito!

Coup
For Sale
Camel Up
Splendour
Love Letter

Do you have any of the Catan expansions? They make it an entirely different game.

Dominion is the one you want!

A deck building game. It is cards but it comes in a sizeable box so it won't fit into a stocking. And it is expensive.

But it's megga!!!! And there are loads of expansion decks available too.

Another one that my ds liked is Betrayal House on the Hill.

I never got into that one and it is quite complicated but ds loved it.

.But Dominion is easy to pick up - but of course once you know it you can get more cunning with play.

Definitely pandemic and then pandemic legacy
King of Tokyo
Forbidden desert/island
Castle panic (even 5 year old ds loves castle panic junior)
We love eldritch horror but sometimes have to leave it set up for a few evenings
Gloomhaven
Crossbows and catapults - a favourite from DHs childhood that he got more recently from Kickstarter
We like ticket to ride too but can see you have that

Stocking fillers
Zombie dice and get bit are favourites here

Christmas/family gatherings
One night werewolf
The resistance (these are much easier to explain to non game players now people have seen the traitors)
Codenames

Chocolate Azul is the best of the Azuls.
Forbidden Island is better than desert. We've just got Forbidden Jungle and it is really challenging to win
Century Spice 3 games when you've finally tired of Splendor and extensions (in both you collect cubes/chips in order to buy cards to gain score)
Skyjo for quick play card game
K2 for something completely different to anything mentioned by previous posters
Village as an introduction to worker placement games before tackling Caverna or Agricola

Read the reviews and watch videos on boardgamegeek of the games mentioned in this thread to see if it suits your family/time frame for a game

My daughter's favourite board games at that age were Stratego and the London Game.

5 second rule. It's hilarious!

Monopoly Deal

I note you have Catan
Have you thought about all the extensions for it….Seafarers etc

Ps RISK is a family must have I think.

You’ve got me going through the cupboards now raking out games for Christmas

Judge Dredd is one of our favourites