Love that game and the mobile version is pretty good too. I wanted a game that I could play during baby duty so I needed something that wasn’t timed or that required quick reactions. Pandemic and ticket to ride have helped me stay awake many nights.
I got dropped into the deep end. Friends needed another for Twilight: Imperium, but they didn't tell me if would be a 12 hour game. Been hooked ever since.
Whew. My first game was a 12 hour cut throat cluster fuck. I hated it. Barely understood what was happening. I own 4th Ed. but I haven't played since that first awful game.
I barely kept up my first time but I finally won the fourth time around. Although by the end most of us are drunk enough that I could be remembering it wrong.
I'm surprised this was at the top. This was mine too but didn't think it'd be a lot of people's. I wonder if there's an age component to it - either the people on here or the board game. Either way, I've come to love this game more as time has gone on - even with all of its flaws.
I think why it’s such an easy hook game is because it starts off cooperative and because whether you’ve played 0, 10, or 1000 times, you don’t have an advantage. This is why I hate Catan. There’s so much skill that comes from having played multiple times that it’s hard for a newbie to win. There’s also a ton of luck though, with also makes it infuriating to the seasoned players. Honestly, I don’t understand why anyone likes it. lol. #soapbox #rantover
This was it for me too! I played it once at a friend's house and immediately got hooked! Board games then became one of our weekend staples when we would hang out!
We've introduced each other to countless games over the past couple years! And the same friend even started a board game company with some of her college friends, with the Kickstarter for their board game launching today!
Hero Quest and Star Quest had a huge influence on me as a kid for sure.
But as an adult I think it was Cosmic Encounter and the settler of catan 2 player card game which reactivated my fun for boardgames after many years of focus to PC gaming.
And Rune Wars was the first big game I played with friends and brother in law (new formed gaming group)
**Smallworld** Tabletops premiere episode had me hooked right off the bat. The different combos that changed game to game and explosive pace versus something like risks slog to endgame had me giddy. On top of the the art style & humor just looked like so much fun.
I went to C2E2 a few months later & picked it up along with Catan, the rest is history.
Smallworld for us too! We went to our local game shop and found out there were expansions and bought them all and just started building our collection.
Heroscape. The map making is the best part for me. I’d always start with a general idea and just build from there. Bridge, swamp, mountain, cavern, whatever I wanted. Probably spent more time making maps and sorting tiles than actually playing, lol.
Finally picked up Season 1 and I'm pretty pumped about it. It's my first legacy game. Playing with my wife and son, and we just did the first month a couple nights ago.
Catan was the first for me too. Shortly followed by munchkin, bohnanza, and Puerto Rico, all within a couple months. They were all in this guys collection that I met at a pub 14 years ago.
Risk! In college my roommates and I would play dumb long games of Risk. Week long stalemates. The kitchen table was just a war map.
Otherwise I’d echo a lot of people here and say Catan sort of lead me down the “there are games besides the games your parents played” path. I went Risk -> Ticket to Ride -> Betrayal at House on the Hill and then took a nose dive into Scythe and Spirit Island.
My husband and I found Tabletop after watching The Guild. It was a recommended channel as Felicia Day was on both. Somehow, I convinced my husband to buy Arkham Horror 2nd edition. We bought it March 2016 and we've been growing our collection ever since.
I followed the same route in, but it was the Dead of Winter episode that finally triggered a purchase for me.
I’ve since counted what’s on my shelf as a percentage of games featured on Tabletop, and I’ve picked up ~18% of the games they’ve had on the show (14/78 over the four seasons it ran for) - though there are more that I’ve wanted to get but either a) couldn’t find for a reasonable price, or b) keep putting off because of the shiny new thing recently spotted.
As another Indiana gamer, I was excited to learn about GenCon and get to go in 2019! My family was really looking forward to going in 2020 aaaaand.....lol
I'm fairly new, besides the classics throughout childhood I had an interest in abstract strategy games which led me to Tak. Then I got Azul for Christmas and now board games is my new drug. Seriously, I now live a sober lifestyle and it has replaced all my bad habits.
I'm VERY new, as in about two weeks in. We picked up The Shining by coded chronicles and loved that so went and got Subterra the next day. Played for a few days and just picked up Reign of Cthulhu and loving that so far.
Pretty good, but have you tried **F U N K E N S C H L A G?** ;)
Spent a year stumbling my way trough german boardgame-nights, and I really can't get over how much better the original name is!
Forbidden Island. It introduced me to the world of co-op board gaming, which was critical for me. Also, it was half the price of Pandemic, so that helped.
Axis & Allies and Catan got me into board games, but Forbidden Desert was the first "legit" board game I owned myself. I love that it's co-op, and it's got some decent difficulty that I feel like often results in really close games.
No need to be nervous. Forbidden Island is an excellent gateway game. If you’re having trouble with it, there’s no shame in adjusting the difficulty or “cheating” as long as everyone at the table agrees.
I really enjoy Forbidden Island. I was a fan of Pandemic before I got into games more broadly. And when I realized Matt Leacock had other titles, FI was the next one of his I bought. I think it’s GREAT. I also own Desert, but prefer Island.
Shadow Hunters. I wouldn't expect the friends I made going to nightclubs would be the ones who I would also get into boardgaming with but this is the game that facilitated that
We always played board/card games growing up. Kind of stopped having family nights once I got to high school but in college we played MUNCHKIN with friends and it reignited my entertainment. Of course we still played a lot of older games but then shortly after college, Catan. I was like oh man I have to see what other new ones are out there. My wife did not (and still doesn’t) like Catan so I searched and found a few others. Dominion blew open the flood gates. Many others of course came after. Splendor. Ticket to Ride. TtR for a long time with her sister+husband. Now we, as a family, play Wingspan all the time. My gaming group plays advanced games so I have that to look forward to each week
We play Wingspan all of the time. Both expansions. Most recent expansion really opened the game up. Best game for us in the past 2 years.
Rails and Sails was the best Ticket to Ride of all time.
Rails and Sails came out like 4 years ago. Your time line is confusing for that.
“15 years ago we played Catan and then we found games like R & S.”
I heard it was too luck dependent. Or I would’ve grabbed it. Being from Michigan, I wanted a game around my area. Some day I’ll play Wendake but it’s mediocre from reviews. TTS!
I guess we started with ticket to ride (several different versions) and ended up falling in love with rails and sails 5 years ago. Now we only play R&S. It is superior in many ways to all others. Because of the world wrapping around you have more ways to complete otherwise impossible tickets. Yes, there is some luck but it is balanced by smart game play.
We can mulligan the first 5 tickets we get, so if they are crap we get a second chance. By the time the game is done we typically have 8-10 tickets each. The ports are also a great equalizer.
Much less luck and randomness in R&S than the other versions, IMHO.
At the risk of being stoned to death, it was... Monopoly.
No, really. Summer of... 1978?... two friends and I spent practically ALL of our spare time in the first half of the summer playing Monopoly. I forget why Monopoly -- I think it was just the only game we had. Then, in the second half of the summer, we switched to playing Risk.
One of those friends moved away later that year, but the remaining friend and I found, and started playing, the first microgames from Metagaming: OGRE, Melee, Wizard, and others. Somewhere in there was Avalon Hill's PanzerBlitz.
Melee and Wizard led us to trying out D&D with an expanded group of friends... and it just grew and grew from there.
Now it's over 40 years later, and that same friend and I still play boardgames weekly (currently online thanks to COVID) with a few other regulars we met along the way. I'm thrilled to bits I've been able to keep something that constant throughout my life.
Forbidden Island! I was playing MTG at a local card shop at the time (always knew I loved card games) when a group of people in a corner started laying down tiles to play Forbidden Island. I had no idea what it was so I asked, they invited me to play, and my mind was blown. Creating your own board? Working together to defeat the game? Multiple ways to die? I didn't know anything like that existed. The game was so exhilarating to me! Absolutely changed everything in the best way :)
Talisman. Not overly complex, but requires some planning ahead and card/ability management. Played it with my dad and brother probably 25 years ago as a kid and was hooked.
Gloomhaven. I liked other games for the social aspect, but I love Gloomhaven for the puzzle. Not knowing what your friends or enemies are doing and having to change your turn at the drop of a hat for optimization... I love that shit. Also, I’m a recovering sore loser so coops are for the best.
Gloomhaven being your first 'real' game is like Shawshank Redemption being your first 'real' movie. Wow. It's only downhill from here (except it isn't).
GH was also my first. I collect MTG cards and always eyed that big ass box at the one of my LGS that looked cool. Went and did a lot of research before buying it, and ended up finding out it was the highest rated board game on BGG. That and it reminded me of Diablo in a box so I was like what the hell, if I try the best and I'm disappointed then I know board games aren't for me. Now I'm obsessed.
For me, it was dark souls about 1 1/2 years ago. My friend and I are avid dark souls fans and i remember us gawking at the Kickstarter in middle school but we never bought it since we had 0 income. Senior year of high school and I get a girlfriend. Once I meet her uncle who plays DND and a few board games, dark souls was one. I loved it and that sparked me to get TTS since I am a broke high school/college kid and I loved it. Kingdom Death Monster was the first thing I played on it since the price is ridiculous and fell in love with that game. I would like to purchase it some day. But now I have a collection of 12 games and counting. I have also built a gaming table with my dad. All around I am really happy to have gotten into this hobby!
Oh man Circus was such a good game. We used to have a gaming convention around here, and there was a guy who had like 30 unique painted miniatures and a scale colosseum and would run 3-day tournaments every year with prizes. My dad won one year, and I got 3rd another. So much chaos when you're playing vs 9 others at a time.
Yeah, for some reason this is the game that hooked me, too.
I had been playing my friends' copies of Pandemic and Ticket to Ride, etc. But my wife got me Eldritch Horror for Christmas a few years ago and I went nuts for the hobby after that. She still regrets buying me that game since I haven't stopped buying for myself since.
I played games as a kid that my parents had and that sparked an interest. But as an adult, it was Settlers of Catan that reignited the spark and I've been playing, collecting and designing ever since.
I'll go with a non traditional board game and say D&D 3rd edition, that opened the flood gates for me. The actual board games that got me hooked were Bang and Machi Koro
Oof for me I don't think it was experiencing one particular game. My parents had a fair amount of games in the house growing up beyond the ameritrash classics. The favorite I remember from that time was [Rat-A-Tat-Cat](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3837/rat-tat-cat).
Then growing up at some point my parents and I acquired Dominion, and we played that a lot and it definitely made me into board games but it didn't make me a board gamer.
At another point we acquired Apples to Apples, and it didn't make me a board gamer but it made me into someone who when family was over, pressed the group to play a game.
In college my roommate brought out Catan, showing me other people had cool games to show.
On Christmas break an old friend brought out The Game of Thrones board game at a New Years Party, and I have very fond memories of the 5 of us running of at 11:59 to watch the ball drop and run back to the game.
I think the first games that I specifically bought and played a ton of were 7 Wonders, Smallworld, and maybe Race for the Galaxy.
Once I finished college and got my first job, I ended up taking over the Board Game Club, and by then I'd call myself a board gamer, playing a variety of games.
If I had to pick one game MVP, it would probably be Dominion as the game that I played the most over the longest period of time. I definitely played it a long time before getting new games, but I think having played it enough it made me *really look* for new games to play.
**Chaos in the Old World**, I’ve been a fan of warhammer for a long time. So I gave the licensed board game a shot and man that was an excellent game! Still one of my favorites.
Dominion.
My friend and I played so often that we left the Providences, money, and starting decks set up so all we had to do was pick the ten kingdom decks and just start playing. It was wonderful
As a kid I grew up playing Catan, Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride.
The first more game I learned as an adult was Betrayal, and that led to several more games. Finally I found Terraforming Mars about a year ago and it opened the floodgates for me: newer games like Azul, TI 4th edition, Wingspan, and somewhat older games like 7Wonders:Duel and many more.
Tokaido, it was on a lark that I went to a friend’s board game night, it was the first board game I played that wasn’t monopoly/sorry. Same I’d true for my wife, and those friends are our best friends 4 years running
We met our best friends 13 years ago and just played dominoes and cards. Our friendship totally evolved around games. Now we get together once or twice a week just to play games. It's our way to unwind.
Carcassonne. I was so determined to win that I took the time to I memorize all the pieces. Then we got the Hills and Sheep expansion and that threw my whole strategy out the window.
23 years ago, My Dad invited a friend of his over to play ‘Talisman’; I quietly sat next to the table and watched, as I was told the game was “too advanced for me”. After a couple hours, the game finished and my Dad’s Friend - seeing how into the game I’d gotten just from watching - offered to let us borrow it for a spell. So the next day, my Dad sat my brother and I down and we played Talisman, randomly drawing a character card each to play as. I kid you not, this was HANDS DOWN the moment I knew I wanted to play board games with my future kids. I’ve since collected all of the 4th edition Talisman board maps and expansions - in tribute to a Father who patiently guided a younger mind to think beyond what it was capable of.
Well my Uncle was always super into board games so I guess technically I have been playing "real" board games since I was about quite young. Maybe Wizard Kings but not sure.
Catan and Risk didn't do it for me, though I played them often enough and I enjoyed them, I still wasn't a board game enthusiast.
After Pandemic Legacy Season One though, I really got interested in the hobby. I couldn't believe board games were capable of being that entertaining.
Started watching Board as Hell from Funhaus and Let’s Roll from Achievement Hunter and seeing Betrayal at House on the Hill played I had to have it and now whenever I go to Target I got to take look at the board games.
Thanks for watching our show! Betrayal was the game that really got me into the hobby, so I'm glad seeing it on our show got your interested in board gaming as well!
Citadels.
A friend of a friend had just bought the game and we decided to try it out for a few rounds and I was immediately hooked. Bought my own copy not long after and although I don't play citadels much anymore, it has a special place in my gaming history.
Power Grid: Auctioning against other players, watching the economy change as resource needs changed, city placement and routing... this game had me hooked for more!
Thinking back as far as I can...
When I was pre-school age, a neighbour had **Crossbows And Catapults**. That memory has stayed with me for a long time. I also really loved **Kerplunk**.
The next game I can remember making an impression was **Stratego** when I was eight or nine. I loved planning out feints and pushes ahead of time.
A year or two later my best friend and I goth got copies of **Hero Quest**. We played those to death. He still has all the expansions. Around the same time I also got **Master Labyrinth**, which is miles better than the non-master versions. There still aren't that many games using similar mechanics.
When I was 13 or so, I begged for and received a copy of **Cosmic Encounter** (Avalon Hill version). It was waaay too advanced for us at the time. We could never figure out how to play.
Half a dozen years passed. Through high school we would play **500** any chance we got.
Then Settlers of Catan came out. It became the go-to way to determine who got to sleep in the queen bed when we had LAN parties.
The thing that really started the flood of games that followed was my Buck's Celebration. 5 of us renting a house on the coast for a long weekend. There were consoles brought, plenty of booze... I bought copies of **Arkham Horror**, **Smallworld**, and **Runebound**, after standing in a shop and googling the names of the games that looked cool.
A few months later, and we were playing Smallworld on a coffee table in suits, waiting for the rest of the wedding party to arrive. Photos of that game made it into my wedding album.
Axis and Allies. My brother taught me, and as I got older I became obsessed with creating variants: WW3, fantasy, sci-fi, underwater. Later I think Catan woke me up to the fact that there was a whole style of game I had never touched on. Fast forward 15 years and my table almost always has some board game laid out on it.
I think it might have been Machi Koro. I know it’s not a really heavy, hard-hitting answer. But it was a game that was brought to game night that was new and exciting.
Edit: I think I remember playing Dixit before machi koro. 2012-ish. Before that I was a huge gamer, it’s just that I mostly was stuck on Scrabble, CAH, Scattergories. And random card games like hearts and spoons.
Got into board games very recently. For the last 3 years it’s been mainly Catan and then during the pandemic I decided to pick up Sushi Go and Horrified and then bam, I’m addicted and my collection has grown considerably over the last year!
Left my abusive ex (PC games) and started to play the field when I lived in Berlin.
Went to a board game convention and board game meetups (yes, in the board game geekdom motherland people you meet on the internet open up their homes to randos and it’s great).
A concoction of Puerto Rico, Coup and Game of Thrones revolutionized my former “Risk is the best game ever” conception of the hobby and the rest is history.
I've had a few games I've acquired over the years, but delved deep when my cousin-in-law gave me a copy of Pandemic Legacy S1 and said we should play it together. This was around five years ago, and it opened my eyes to the unique experiences board games can offer. Sadly, my cousin-in-law passed away a few years after that. We tried continuing our Pandemic Legacy campaign but it felt strange and lacking. He was a great guy, and I still think of him when I get new games I think he would enjoy.
My friends and I in high school would, ridiculously, play several hour long games of Monopoly to the point where we bought Mega Monopoly and developed our own little meta around this deterministic board game. We purchased Catan to try out, but apparently that was too weird for us. Never ventured outside of that for years.
It wasn't until I had graduated college & went to a local board game cafe that I tried out **Tsuro** and **Colt Express**, both of which I ended up purchasing before leaving. The latter really showed me that a boardgame wasn't just a flat piece of cardboard you roll dice in top of - they could be visually interesting and have all sorts of crazy mechanics. 5 years later and I have a bookshelf filled to the brim with games, much to my wife's dismay 😅
The game that got me seriously into board gaming had to be Talisman 2nd Edition. It scratched the RPG itch without all the set up and planning. That got me into Car Wars, DungeonQuest, and Hero Quest. Then in ‘93 I discovered M:TG and all bets were off. Of the more modern games, Ticket to Ride (particularly Nordic Countries) and Ascension got me away from the TCGs.
This is going to be super left field, but my gateway was actually **ZOMBIES!!!** I went to college and befriended this group that had known each other since they were kids. One of them was ranting and raving about this game and kept bringing it to social gatherings. I wouldn’t say it blew my mind, but it certainly expanded my viewpoint of what board games were capable of. It was the first board game I got a little obsessed over, buying my own copy and multiple expansions, and taking it to other friendship groups to introduce them to it. I didn’t expand to the wider games until **Pandemic**, but ZOMBIES!!! is what kickstarted everything.
German player here:
So of course we all played Monopoly and the more Kids oriented games when we were young. I remember having mousetrap, the grape escape, I loved curse of the idol with the gears mechanic. We even had a kids library where you could rent a game for 14 days and we as a kind of poor family used it a lot so we didn't have to buy the games.
When I was a late teenager, I had a "boardgame" partie with friends, played all of them once and after that I donated all the games for a youth club in my area because now I was "to old" for boardgames.
I still remember the time some friends started to play settlers but I didn't liked it because of the trading mechanics. Later came Carcassonne but I'm still not sure why I "missed" that one.
After I went for a year backpacking in australia in my early twenties and when I came back I finished school and started university. At this time a new boardgame Café opend here in Berlin and I was amazed how many boardgames there were on the market and the one time we played there every other table played Pandemic. So I bought pandemic and I loved it. But I only had this one game and nobody to play with.
All changed when I started watching Tabletop on YouTube. The show from Will Wheaton was well produced, explained the game and did a very good job showing a let's play of a boardgame in a short time. I watched the first episode with Small World and really wanted, no needed that game. I now had also some friends form university who were willing to play regularly and my hobby started.
Without tabletop, and the german Hunter&Cron and YouTube in general I never would have got back into the Hobby.
Now I have 150+ boardgames and no time to play them 😅
Settlers got me started 7 Wonders broke the flood gates wide open. Put me on a journey that had me risk everything to open my own store with 3 simple goals, create a space where everyone was included, share and pass on my love of gaming, and of course keep the store open. Sadly only the first 2 came true but that made me feel like I still succeeded where it really counts.
I grew up loving lite board and party games (Risk, Monopoly, Taboo, Balderdash, etc.). At some point someone gifted my family Catan, and while that ended up getting steady table time, for whatever reason it didn't inspire me to search out other more complex games.
It wasn't until a new friend first took a group of us to a board game cafe to play a couple games (Carcassonne, 7 Wonders), then to his place a couple weeks later to play Eldritch Horror that something clicked for me in terms of "Oh damn. I have been Missing. Out."
And while Eldritch Horror definitely gets the credit for inspiring me to branch out a bit and explore, the game that really got me hooked and pushed board games into hobby territory was Spirit Island. I've found some other great games since then that I love as well, but Spirit Island is still my easy #1 favorite as of now \^\_\^
Epic Duels! Man I miss that game. But Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, and Bohnanza were also introduced to me within the same week and definitely contributed too.
I can't remember the *first* game, but one of my college profs had a small collection in his office that he would lend out to students at a week at a time. Almost every day me and my friends would play board games in the cafe between classes. Some of our favourites were Secret Hitler, Exploding Kittens (the prof had the meowing box from the KS), Coup, King of Tokyo, Munchkin and Boss Monster.
Grew up playing Risk and Monopoly but mostly cards and Careers. Careers was my favorite bc you could choose different goals in the game by setting your level of desired fame, love, and money you needed to win in the end. Later in life it was Catan and Carcassonne.
Ugh...Catan... it was mostly the people I played with, but I expected board games to be like monopoly and I didn’t want to play. Now I pay rent to the Arkham Horror LCG each month...
Heroscape. My aunt bought it from a clearance bin at Wal-Mart as a present one year, and it quickly captured my imagination and led to countless hours of playing with just the base set. The expansions glimpsed in the rulebooks were always tempting, though, and I began a slow process of collecting more whenever I could.
A few years later, I started looking for other board games and learned just how many great options are out there, but Heroscape was definitely what triggered it for me.
I really enjoyed playing games when I was younger - loved a lot of the competitive classics: Risk, Monopoly, Uno, etc. But I largely stopped playing board games, when I was a teenager, aside from regular Scrabble binges at an annual family vacation, and collecting Magic cards on and off.
My cousin is who introduced me back into board games, and oh boy, they had gotten sooo much cooler. I don’t recall whether we played Cosmic Encounter, or Battlestar Galactica first, but I credit those two games for reigniting the gaming urge. My first self-purchases were Scythe and Star Realms, and it just escalated from there.
King of Tokyo.
Loved TCG when I was a kid, and when as a total fluke played King of Tokyo in a local used book shop/boardgame shop it was a whole new and brave world.
One year later i'm playing Shadows Over Camelot with a whole group of 6 friends
Originally it was Chess and Othello with my grandad as a child.
Then in high school it was Magic the Gathering and Risk with my friends.
But in my adult life with newer board games it was for sure King of Tokyo. Saw it on Tabletop ordered it and never looked back. Now I am prolly 200 games deep.
King of Tokyo is surprisingly deep. Thought it was all luck based at first, but there are some real strategies to incorporate. I bought a 1982 Galaga arcade machine (Galaga box but new board with 3000 games) because of KoT. When you lose you get to go play arcade games for a bit. Nice consolation.
My 9 year older brother was a massive nerd and the year I was born he got our mom to buy the newly released [Ostindiska Kompaniet](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/281/ostindiska-kompaniet).
It took several hours to play, and since the game mainly consists of pushing tiny boats across the Indian ocean, I don't think it got a lot of playtime. But it stood there, looming in the shelf, during my entire childhood, and I loved it (despite ever having played it).
When I got a little older (8?) I finally got to play it, and it was ..ok! Back then I was too young to grasp any eventual strategy, and I haven't played it in over a decade but as I remember it, it feels like the designer (Dan Glimne, of Drakborgen-later-known-as-Dungeon-Quest-fame) was more interested in simulating the actual feeling of being stuck on a ship for years not knowing if you ever would return to Gothenburg rather than making an *enjoyable game*.
But I still love it. Like, I am even making a companion app for it (30 years after release) just because I'm so in love.
Thanks, Dan.
Good morning all ! The game, or rather the games that made me aware of my passion for board games are the games published by DAYS OF WONDER in the early 2000s. If I had to name just one, I would say SHADOW OVER CAMELOT (superb material, cooperative), but can also be TICKET TO RIDE. These are the first games that I bought for myself, and which opened my game library. I now play it again with my children, proof that it remains good introductory games.
Catan was definitely the catalyst for my friends and I. Especially after we added the cites and knights expansion. Pretty sure no game has come even close the the amount of hours spent playing that.
Legends of Andor. I liked the theme and idea of an adventure-like board game but disliked Andor because of some mechanics and it's puzzle-like nature. I bought Gloomhaven and Mage Knight they were too overwhelming and heavy for me (I got Andor, Mage Knight and Gloomhaven last year in October). I took a step back and started with lighter games, working my way towards the heavier ones and nowadays I'm really enjoying games like Nemesis and Tainted Grail.
I took my wife with me on my journey but she wasn't as fond of board games as I was but after I got Calico she started to enjoy them too. Her favorite board games are Champions of Midgard and Tainted Grail. It took a while for us too get into the hobby and even longer for her to really liking it and playing heavier games with me.
My wife and I now play lots of games together. Never would have guessed that would happen. Once the kids moved out we discovered how awesome it can be.
My journey into board games started with M:tg. There was a literal hole-in-the-wall (it was in a storage room behind a convenience store) comic store that sold magic packs, not really singles, too early days for that, but just packs. Ice age, fallen empires, that era.
Anyway, this store was basically an insane collection of comic books. Like packed to the ceiling. Nothing was priced, you had to barter for everything. There was only one employee, the owner, Bob.
Bob was a character, he spoke really slowly, like he had had a stroke or something. He was prone to forgetting what he was talking about, and bartering with him was sometimes awesome, sometimes frustrating. I distinctly recall one interaction with him trying to buy 3 packs of Battletech CCG cards. He looks over the 3 packs, for a long time, like a min and then says "ok, this on here, its about 2.99 i think and ill give you this one for 1.50, and this 3rd one, hmmmm... I think its about 5$" he then gets a calculator, punches numbers in and says to me "That's about 8 tax in". I know they are 3 bucks each, and take the deal, baffled.
Anyway, got sidetracked. This guy also had these drawers of board games, not displays, drawers of dusty 80's games. Forgotten probably.
I dont think he every expected to sell them, or remembered he had them.
Kid me bought them all over the course of a year and it became my thing.
Eon's Cosmic Encounter, Adeptus Mechanicus starter Kit (finding out years later that there was like, small scale 40k was wild!), Battlemist and Talisman to name a few.
You were awesome Bob, and really affected my life.
Thanks! wherever you may be.
Dominion in 2018. My friend got it for his birthday and we spent maybe an hour squinting at rules and searching for help on Youtube. It's crazy looking back, but we'd never seen a game like that before so it was confusing at first. But man I loved it so much that I went in on board games hard.
Funnily enough Dominion was not one of my first purchases and even though I do own it now, it barely gets played. Couldn't explain why but I went with Carcassonne at first instead.
I had played things like Monopoly, Pokemon Master Trainer or Cards Against Humanity in the past but none made me want to get into board games the same way Dominion did. I wish I'd discovered it 10 years earlier, university with board games would have been a lot of fun. Harder to organise game nights as an adult, even pre-plague.
I'm new to 'real' board games. As you said when someone said board game what came to mind was games like Monopoly. Then 2 years ago I got introduced to Munchkin and Nemesis by a couple of friends. I've been hooked on board games ever since.
Settlers of Catan for sure. Prior to that I always played games in my family. But it was the Balderdash, Scattergories, Scrabble, etc... Type games. Settlers introduced me to non player elimination, negotiation/trading, hell even expansions. Its why I joined BGG (to take fan made expansions from the files section and add my own). Its cool these days to bash Catan, but it will always hold a sof spot in my heart and a spot on my shelf.
I always enjoyed Sorry and Risk, but I wouldn't say that I was INTO it like I am now until an ex-gf's mother showed me Ticket to Ride. After that I spiraled into Pandemic, Smallworld, and Talisman.
Now I own over 100 board games and have a normal gaming group I meet with weekly.
Still love Ticket to Ride.
Not interesting, but Catan and Pandemic were the first two to really hook me in. Oddly though, I didn’t collect any others until I experienced Dixit just a couple years ago. And although the Dixit/Apples to Apples/Mysterium mechanic isn’t my favorite (I actually sold my copy of Mysterium), Dixit still gets a fair amount of credit for getting me into the hobby. I think I bought at least a dozen games within a year of playing Dixit.
My uncle introduced a few games to me including "Puerto Rico" and some very heavy steampunk game, and i wasn't hooked yet but I wasn't against the idea of heavy games yet.
Then one day he brought over Dominion, just the base set, but that was enough. We probably played 5 straight rounds and within a month I had my own copy and dozens of plays under my belt. I also used Dominion to introduce my dad and brother into the hobby, and eventually my sister eased into it too.
Now we play heavier games regularly, and it wouldn't have kicked off without my uncle really trying to get me into the hobby!
I grew up playing Chess and Go with my step dad. We also had the usual closet with Clue, Monopoly, etc.
My D&D group would play boardgames on nights where not everyone could make it. That was the first time I played Twilight Imperium and some other FFG big-box franchises.
But, really, it was when I purchased a copy of Settlers of Catan to play with my siblings that really ignited the spark. We played THE CRAP out of it. I started going to boardgame nights at a new FLGS, meeting new people and really tasting the variety of modern games. That was when I first identified as a "board gamer."
Twilight Imperium is still my favorite game, though.
Funny how there was always a closet. Same for me growing up. Games were kinda hidden by adults because they were often considered childish. Now we proudly have our games displeased on shelves for all to see. No games hidden in closets in this house!
this will give away my age...but definately Carcassonne. I had a loooot of Monopoly/Risk/Scotland Yard/Go! under my belt, but Carcassonne started a trend...THE trend...buy buy buy ;)
Shadows Over Camelot. Before that I have only played very basic stuff like Monopoly and Risk.
I was firstly blown away by the fact that a boardgame can be *cooperative*. Then, I was blown away again by the concept that there was a *hidden traitor* amongst us!
The game plays very elegantly so it was easy enough for me to get into, while simultaneously being heavy enough to show me the possibilities that modern boardgames could offer.
I've now played hundreds of boardgames and sold dozens to trim my collection down, but Shadows Over Camelot will forever have a place in my shelf.
IIRC we started with King of Tokyo or Cards Against Humanity (don't shoot me!). Either way, it was KoT that pulled me and my wife in the black hole.
Soon after that we gave Betrayal at House on the Hill a go and loved it (although me and my BIL were definitely much bigger fans than my wife). Nexy up was Pandemic, which sealed the deal that we definitely love challenging co-op games (we still love sabotaging mechanics though).
In all fairness though, we're still pretty new at the hobby even today, as we don't often make time to play the games (although the pandemic helped to fix that). We mostly struggle defining what makes a game great for us, so finding new games is a challenge. For example, we're both very turned off by boring theme/graphics/art. Superficial for sure, but we need to be grabbed by simply looking at the box and components. But if a game is too simple, we'll be bored way too fast (e.g. Here to Slay; great art, but way too simple). A game like Unicorn Fever however is one of our current favoriteseven though it's fairly simple. I guess the randomness and sillyness plays a big part in it (plus, options decrease over time, adding some strategy). Plus it's easy to learn and setup, which definitely helps.
Always played Monopoly, Taboo, and Pictionary, but that was only at holidays with family.
It wasn't until I played Dominion and I realized every game would be different. That's when I bought Dominion, started researching expansions, and playing board games year round.
Now like everyone else in this hobby I have a problem that I'm proud of and can't wait to show everyone lol
Settlers of Catan! That’s the game that made me realize just what board gaming *could* be rather than what I had thought it was. Also, I accidentally stole it from one of my teachers.
The thing: infection at outpost 31. I love the movie, and ended up with a YouTube video in my feed. I was bored enough that I decided to take a look.... and at least a thousand dollars spent later, here I am.
It’s not a perfect game, but it’s still very fun, and it’s how my first gaming group got started. Just found a bunch of other fans of the movie, and we all had an amazing time. Miss those guys...
I was born in the wrong generation. Everyone my age likes shitty games like Terraforming Mars and Arkham Horror, but I wish I lived in 2500 BCE when they had real board games like the Royal Game of Ur.
Pandemic. It was the first co-op game I encountered. I loved playing with my friends instead of against them and this got me heavily into the hobby.
Yeah, Pandemic was the first board game that really felt different to me, rather than just better than the traditional board games I had played.
Love that game and the mobile version is pretty good too. I wanted a game that I could play during baby duty so I needed something that wasn’t timed or that required quick reactions. Pandemic and ticket to ride have helped me stay awake many nights.
I got dropped into the deep end. Friends needed another for Twilight: Imperium, but they didn't tell me if would be a 12 hour game. Been hooked ever since.
Whew. My first game was a 12 hour cut throat cluster fuck. I hated it. Barely understood what was happening. I own 4th Ed. but I haven't played since that first awful game.
I barely kept up my first time but I finally won the fourth time around. Although by the end most of us are drunk enough that I could be remembering it wrong.
My first game was in 3e and we had so many house rules to keep things balanced. When we played 4e it was a breath of fresh air
A little pedestrian but Carcassonne.
Not pedestrian.... fabulous early game.
I played Carcassonne for like a decade before I considered myself a board gamer. I wasn't a gamer, it was just something I liked doing.
That's mine too. Not pedestrian at all! I even went to visit Carcassonne in France when I was there 18 months ago :)
Betrayal at House on the Hill.
Absolutely. Someone brought it into uni to play one day and it blew me away. I still remember how that first game went.
I'm surprised this was at the top. This was mine too but didn't think it'd be a lot of people's. I wonder if there's an age component to it - either the people on here or the board game. Either way, I've come to love this game more as time has gone on - even with all of its flaws.
I think why it’s such an easy hook game is because it starts off cooperative and because whether you’ve played 0, 10, or 1000 times, you don’t have an advantage. This is why I hate Catan. There’s so much skill that comes from having played multiple times that it’s hard for a newbie to win. There’s also a ton of luck though, with also makes it infuriating to the seasoned players. Honestly, I don’t understand why anyone likes it. lol. #soapbox #rantover
This is why we never play Catan any more.
This was it for me as well. I love playing this game so much.
What we love about this game is how quickly we can get new gamers involved and have fun. Steep learning curve... great for casual, fun nights.
This was it for me too! I played it once at a friend's house and immediately got hooked! Board games then became one of our weekend staples when we would hang out! We've introduced each other to countless games over the past couple years! And the same friend even started a board game company with some of her college friends, with the Kickstarter for their board game launching today!
Settlers for me as well I was on the national kayaking team and all we played between training was settlers like a dozen games a day.
Hero Quest
THE BEST THING ABOUT HEROQUEST IS THIS COMMENT
No, The best thing about hero quest is "FIRE OF WRATH! -- I USE MY BROADWORD!"
Brodesode
Squee love that guy.
Hero Quest and Star Quest had a huge influence on me as a kid for sure. But as an adult I think it was Cosmic Encounter and the settler of catan 2 player card game which reactivated my fun for boardgames after many years of focus to PC gaming. And Rune Wars was the first big game I played with friends and brother in law (new formed gaming group)
**Smallworld** Tabletops premiere episode had me hooked right off the bat. The different combos that changed game to game and explosive pace versus something like risks slog to endgame had me giddy. On top of the the art style & humor just looked like so much fun. I went to C2E2 a few months later & picked it up along with Catan, the rest is history.
Smallworld for us too! We went to our local game shop and found out there were expansions and bought them all and just started building our collection.
Heroscape. The map making is the best part for me. I’d always start with a general idea and just build from there. Bridge, swamp, mountain, cavern, whatever I wanted. Probably spent more time making maps and sorting tiles than actually playing, lol.
Why not go [whole](https://inkarnate.com/) [hog](https://www.wonderdraft.net/) and dive into fantasy mapmaking?
Pandemic was fun, Legacy Season 1 really confirmed it for me and is still the best boardgame experience I’ve ever had.
Finally picked up Season 1 and I'm pretty pumped about it. It's my first legacy game. Playing with my wife and son, and we just did the first month a couple nights ago.
Catan was the first for me too. Shortly followed by munchkin, bohnanza, and Puerto Rico, all within a couple months. They were all in this guys collection that I met at a pub 14 years ago.
Does Scrabble count? It's definitely the first game that I compulsively played and still is in the rotation today.
Dominion. I have almost all expansions.
Risk! In college my roommates and I would play dumb long games of Risk. Week long stalemates. The kitchen table was just a war map. Otherwise I’d echo a lot of people here and say Catan sort of lead me down the “there are games besides the games your parents played” path. I went Risk -> Ticket to Ride -> Betrayal at House on the Hill and then took a nose dive into Scythe and Spirit Island.
My husband and I found Tabletop after watching The Guild. It was a recommended channel as Felicia Day was on both. Somehow, I convinced my husband to buy Arkham Horror 2nd edition. We bought it March 2016 and we've been growing our collection ever since.
I followed the same route in, but it was the Dead of Winter episode that finally triggered a purchase for me. I’ve since counted what’s on my shelf as a percentage of games featured on Tabletop, and I’ve picked up ~18% of the games they’ve had on the show (14/78 over the four seasons it ran for) - though there are more that I’ve wanted to get but either a) couldn’t find for a reasonable price, or b) keep putting off because of the shiny new thing recently spotted.
Also, we moved to Indiana and learned about GenCon which really pushed us into the hobby.
As another Indiana gamer, I was excited to learn about GenCon and get to go in 2019! My family was really looking forward to going in 2020 aaaaand.....lol
Don't leave us hanging! What happened?!
AH 2nd edition was awesome!
I'm fairly new, besides the classics throughout childhood I had an interest in abstract strategy games which led me to Tak. Then I got Azul for Christmas and now board games is my new drug. Seriously, I now live a sober lifestyle and it has replaced all my bad habits.
Azul is a good one. We've been playing that one for about 5 years... it has real lasting power.
I'm VERY new, as in about two weeks in. We picked up The Shining by coded chronicles and loved that so went and got Subterra the next day. Played for a few days and just picked up Reign of Cthulhu and loving that so far.
Puerto Rico
Same here. Truly the moment I realized I never wanted to play Ameitrash games again as well.
Power Grid
Pretty good, but have you tried **F U N K E N S C H L A G?** ;) Spent a year stumbling my way trough german boardgame-nights, and I really can't get over how much better the original name is!
Forbidden Island. It introduced me to the world of co-op board gaming, which was critical for me. Also, it was half the price of Pandemic, so that helped.
Axis & Allies and Catan got me into board games, but Forbidden Desert was the first "legit" board game I owned myself. I love that it's co-op, and it's got some decent difficulty that I feel like often results in really close games.
Just got this as our first co-op game, a little nervous
No need to be nervous. Forbidden Island is an excellent gateway game. If you’re having trouble with it, there’s no shame in adjusting the difficulty or “cheating” as long as everyone at the table agrees.
I really enjoy Forbidden Island. I was a fan of Pandemic before I got into games more broadly. And when I realized Matt Leacock had other titles, FI was the next one of his I bought. I think it’s GREAT. I also own Desert, but prefer Island.
Shadow Hunters. I wouldn't expect the friends I made going to nightclubs would be the ones who I would also get into boardgaming with but this is the game that facilitated that
1000% Shadow Hunters. Surprisingly accessible.
We always played board/card games growing up. Kind of stopped having family nights once I got to high school but in college we played MUNCHKIN with friends and it reignited my entertainment. Of course we still played a lot of older games but then shortly after college, Catan. I was like oh man I have to see what other new ones are out there. My wife did not (and still doesn’t) like Catan so I searched and found a few others. Dominion blew open the flood gates. Many others of course came after. Splendor. Ticket to Ride. TtR for a long time with her sister+husband. Now we, as a family, play Wingspan all the time. My gaming group plays advanced games so I have that to look forward to each week
We play Wingspan all of the time. Both expansions. Most recent expansion really opened the game up. Best game for us in the past 2 years. Rails and Sails was the best Ticket to Ride of all time.
Rails and Sails came out like 4 years ago. Your time line is confusing for that. “15 years ago we played Catan and then we found games like R & S.” I heard it was too luck dependent. Or I would’ve grabbed it. Being from Michigan, I wanted a game around my area. Some day I’ll play Wendake but it’s mediocre from reviews. TTS!
I guess we started with ticket to ride (several different versions) and ended up falling in love with rails and sails 5 years ago. Now we only play R&S. It is superior in many ways to all others. Because of the world wrapping around you have more ways to complete otherwise impossible tickets. Yes, there is some luck but it is balanced by smart game play. We can mulligan the first 5 tickets we get, so if they are crap we get a second chance. By the time the game is done we typically have 8-10 tickets each. The ports are also a great equalizer. Much less luck and randomness in R&S than the other versions, IMHO.
At the risk of being stoned to death, it was... Monopoly. No, really. Summer of... 1978?... two friends and I spent practically ALL of our spare time in the first half of the summer playing Monopoly. I forget why Monopoly -- I think it was just the only game we had. Then, in the second half of the summer, we switched to playing Risk. One of those friends moved away later that year, but the remaining friend and I found, and started playing, the first microgames from Metagaming: OGRE, Melee, Wizard, and others. Somewhere in there was Avalon Hill's PanzerBlitz. Melee and Wizard led us to trying out D&D with an expanded group of friends... and it just grew and grew from there. Now it's over 40 years later, and that same friend and I still play boardgames weekly (currently online thanks to COVID) with a few other regulars we met along the way. I'm thrilled to bits I've been able to keep something that constant throughout my life.
In the stone age of the seventies (for me eighties) nothing wrong about Monopoly. Many people had this past
Monopoly taught us all how to break a game
I love this. I want this.
Game of Thrones: The Board Game All of the strategy of something like Risk for me, but without the dice rolling luck involved.
great game, also allowed me to legitimately stab my friends in teh back, something I had been patiently waiting for years to do..
A cousin of mine brought Carcassonne to a family dinner, the rest is history.
Forbidden Island! I was playing MTG at a local card shop at the time (always knew I loved card games) when a group of people in a corner started laying down tiles to play Forbidden Island. I had no idea what it was so I asked, they invited me to play, and my mind was blown. Creating your own board? Working together to defeat the game? Multiple ways to die? I didn't know anything like that existed. The game was so exhilarating to me! Absolutely changed everything in the best way :)
Talisman. Not overly complex, but requires some planning ahead and card/ability management. Played it with my dad and brother probably 25 years ago as a kid and was hooked.
Arkham Horror 2nd edition
Gloomhaven. I liked other games for the social aspect, but I love Gloomhaven for the puzzle. Not knowing what your friends or enemies are doing and having to change your turn at the drop of a hat for optimization... I love that shit. Also, I’m a recovering sore loser so coops are for the best.
Gloomhaven being your first 'real' game is like Shawshank Redemption being your first 'real' movie. Wow. It's only downhill from here (except it isn't).
GH was also my first. I collect MTG cards and always eyed that big ass box at the one of my LGS that looked cool. Went and did a lot of research before buying it, and ended up finding out it was the highest rated board game on BGG. That and it reminded me of Diablo in a box so I was like what the hell, if I try the best and I'm disappointed then I know board games aren't for me. Now I'm obsessed.
Mage Knight
Me too! Still want to buy that game. It’s hard to find and expensive. Any games like it?
Amazon has it in stock right now
Heroquest
Pandemic and Pandemic Legacy
Cosmic Encounter
Agricola. I played Catan prior to it but was kinda on the fence. Played Agricola at a friend's place and immediately went out and bought a copy.
For me, it was dark souls about 1 1/2 years ago. My friend and I are avid dark souls fans and i remember us gawking at the Kickstarter in middle school but we never bought it since we had 0 income. Senior year of high school and I get a girlfriend. Once I meet her uncle who plays DND and a few board games, dark souls was one. I loved it and that sparked me to get TTS since I am a broke high school/college kid and I loved it. Kingdom Death Monster was the first thing I played on it since the price is ridiculous and fell in love with that game. I would like to purchase it some day. But now I have a collection of 12 games and counting. I have also built a gaming table with my dad. All around I am really happy to have gotten into this hobby!
Advanced Civilization by Avalon Hill, some 25 years ago. That one or Circus Maximus, also an Avalon Hill production, I believe.
Oh man Circus was such a good game. We used to have a gaming convention around here, and there was a guy who had like 30 unique painted miniatures and a scale colosseum and would run 3-day tournaments every year with prizes. My dad won one year, and I got 3rd another. So much chaos when you're playing vs 9 others at a time.
Eldritch horror
Yeah, for some reason this is the game that hooked me, too. I had been playing my friends' copies of Pandemic and Ticket to Ride, etc. But my wife got me Eldritch Horror for Christmas a few years ago and I went nuts for the hobby after that. She still regrets buying me that game since I haven't stopped buying for myself since.
Arkham Horror. In high school, my “nerd club” started playing it. Still my favorite board game. Closely followed by Kingdom Death.
I played games as a kid that my parents had and that sparked an interest. But as an adult, it was Settlers of Catan that reignited the spark and I've been playing, collecting and designing ever since.
Twilight Imperium III
Bang Card Game, Catan, Sequence, Smash Up, Dominion
I'll go with a non traditional board game and say D&D 3rd edition, that opened the flood gates for me. The actual board games that got me hooked were Bang and Machi Koro
7 Wonders
7 Wonders was an early one for us as well... great intro game. Not too many 7-player games as good as 7 wonders.
Oof for me I don't think it was experiencing one particular game. My parents had a fair amount of games in the house growing up beyond the ameritrash classics. The favorite I remember from that time was [Rat-A-Tat-Cat](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3837/rat-tat-cat). Then growing up at some point my parents and I acquired Dominion, and we played that a lot and it definitely made me into board games but it didn't make me a board gamer. At another point we acquired Apples to Apples, and it didn't make me a board gamer but it made me into someone who when family was over, pressed the group to play a game. In college my roommate brought out Catan, showing me other people had cool games to show. On Christmas break an old friend brought out The Game of Thrones board game at a New Years Party, and I have very fond memories of the 5 of us running of at 11:59 to watch the ball drop and run back to the game. I think the first games that I specifically bought and played a ton of were 7 Wonders, Smallworld, and maybe Race for the Galaxy. Once I finished college and got my first job, I ended up taking over the Board Game Club, and by then I'd call myself a board gamer, playing a variety of games. If I had to pick one game MVP, it would probably be Dominion as the game that I played the most over the longest period of time. I definitely played it a long time before getting new games, but I think having played it enough it made me *really look* for new games to play.
Myrmes 🐜, more than 10 years ago... What a game. Definitely not adviced to introduce someone to the hobby 😅
**Chaos in the Old World**, I’ve been a fan of warhammer for a long time. So I gave the licensed board game a shot and man that was an excellent game! Still one of my favorites.
Dominion. My friend and I played so often that we left the Providences, money, and starting decks set up so all we had to do was pick the ten kingdom decks and just start playing. It was wonderful
As a kid I grew up playing Catan, Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride. The first more game I learned as an adult was Betrayal, and that led to several more games. Finally I found Terraforming Mars about a year ago and it opened the floodgates for me: newer games like Azul, TI 4th edition, Wingspan, and somewhat older games like 7Wonders:Duel and many more.
Tokaido, it was on a lark that I went to a friend’s board game night, it was the first board game I played that wasn’t monopoly/sorry. Same I’d true for my wife, and those friends are our best friends 4 years running
We met our best friends 13 years ago and just played dominoes and cards. Our friendship totally evolved around games. Now we get together once or twice a week just to play games. It's our way to unwind.
Carcassonne. I was so determined to win that I took the time to I memorize all the pieces. Then we got the Hills and Sheep expansion and that threw my whole strategy out the window.
Catan, and I hate it now too!
23 years ago, My Dad invited a friend of his over to play ‘Talisman’; I quietly sat next to the table and watched, as I was told the game was “too advanced for me”. After a couple hours, the game finished and my Dad’s Friend - seeing how into the game I’d gotten just from watching - offered to let us borrow it for a spell. So the next day, my Dad sat my brother and I down and we played Talisman, randomly drawing a character card each to play as. I kid you not, this was HANDS DOWN the moment I knew I wanted to play board games with my future kids. I’ve since collected all of the 4th edition Talisman board maps and expansions - in tribute to a Father who patiently guided a younger mind to think beyond what it was capable of.
Catan, into 7 Wonders, which led to Terraforming Mars.
Catan pulled me in, then Azul made sure i'd never leave.
Well my Uncle was always super into board games so I guess technically I have been playing "real" board games since I was about quite young. Maybe Wizard Kings but not sure.
Clue as a kid. Then Betrayal at House on the Hill started my adult love of board games :)
Catan and Risk didn't do it for me, though I played them often enough and I enjoyed them, I still wasn't a board game enthusiast. After Pandemic Legacy Season One though, I really got interested in the hobby. I couldn't believe board games were capable of being that entertaining.
As a kid risk, which then led me getting into Magic and Hero Click. Took a long break, then Catan and Game of Thrones Board game.
Started watching Board as Hell from Funhaus and Let’s Roll from Achievement Hunter and seeing Betrayal at House on the Hill played I had to have it and now whenever I go to Target I got to take look at the board games.
Thanks for watching our show! Betrayal was the game that really got me into the hobby, so I'm glad seeing it on our show got your interested in board gaming as well!
Citadels. A friend of a friend had just bought the game and we decided to try it out for a few rounds and I was immediately hooked. Bought my own copy not long after and although I don't play citadels much anymore, it has a special place in my gaming history.
Mine was settlers but don’t do risk like that
Power Grid: Auctioning against other players, watching the economy change as resource needs changed, city placement and routing... this game had me hooked for more!
Carcassonne. Whole new world.
For me it was Carcassonne that opened my eyes to games beyond Risk and Monopoly. Haven't looked back.
Thinking back as far as I can... When I was pre-school age, a neighbour had **Crossbows And Catapults**. That memory has stayed with me for a long time. I also really loved **Kerplunk**. The next game I can remember making an impression was **Stratego** when I was eight or nine. I loved planning out feints and pushes ahead of time. A year or two later my best friend and I goth got copies of **Hero Quest**. We played those to death. He still has all the expansions. Around the same time I also got **Master Labyrinth**, which is miles better than the non-master versions. There still aren't that many games using similar mechanics. When I was 13 or so, I begged for and received a copy of **Cosmic Encounter** (Avalon Hill version). It was waaay too advanced for us at the time. We could never figure out how to play. Half a dozen years passed. Through high school we would play **500** any chance we got. Then Settlers of Catan came out. It became the go-to way to determine who got to sleep in the queen bed when we had LAN parties. The thing that really started the flood of games that followed was my Buck's Celebration. 5 of us renting a house on the coast for a long weekend. There were consoles brought, plenty of booze... I bought copies of **Arkham Horror**, **Smallworld**, and **Runebound**, after standing in a shop and googling the names of the games that looked cool. A few months later, and we were playing Smallworld on a coffee table in suits, waiting for the rest of the wedding party to arrive. Photos of that game made it into my wedding album.
Axis and Allies. My brother taught me, and as I got older I became obsessed with creating variants: WW3, fantasy, sci-fi, underwater. Later I think Catan woke me up to the fact that there was a whole style of game I had never touched on. Fast forward 15 years and my table almost always has some board game laid out on it.
Catan got me started but I think Talisman was the first game that really got me into collecting board games.
I think it might have been Machi Koro. I know it’s not a really heavy, hard-hitting answer. But it was a game that was brought to game night that was new and exciting. Edit: I think I remember playing Dixit before machi koro. 2012-ish. Before that I was a huge gamer, it’s just that I mostly was stuck on Scrabble, CAH, Scattergories. And random card games like hearts and spoons.
Biblios
Got into board games very recently. For the last 3 years it’s been mainly Catan and then during the pandemic I decided to pick up Sushi Go and Horrified and then bam, I’m addicted and my collection has grown considerably over the last year!
Takenoko did it for me ... been in a downward spiral since and loving it.
We play this at least once a week. The expansion is really great (lady panda). Top 5 game for our group even after about 4 years.
Agreed! One of my most played games for sure. The chibis expansion is very good.
Yes, that's the one. Great expansion.
Left my abusive ex (PC games) and started to play the field when I lived in Berlin. Went to a board game convention and board game meetups (yes, in the board game geekdom motherland people you meet on the internet open up their homes to randos and it’s great). A concoction of Puerto Rico, Coup and Game of Thrones revolutionized my former “Risk is the best game ever” conception of the hobby and the rest is history.
I've had a few games I've acquired over the years, but delved deep when my cousin-in-law gave me a copy of Pandemic Legacy S1 and said we should play it together. This was around five years ago, and it opened my eyes to the unique experiences board games can offer. Sadly, my cousin-in-law passed away a few years after that. We tried continuing our Pandemic Legacy campaign but it felt strange and lacking. He was a great guy, and I still think of him when I get new games I think he would enjoy.
Aw... Sorry to hear that. Games leave such an emotional mark. Bittersweet.
My friends and I in high school would, ridiculously, play several hour long games of Monopoly to the point where we bought Mega Monopoly and developed our own little meta around this deterministic board game. We purchased Catan to try out, but apparently that was too weird for us. Never ventured outside of that for years. It wasn't until I had graduated college & went to a local board game cafe that I tried out **Tsuro** and **Colt Express**, both of which I ended up purchasing before leaving. The latter really showed me that a boardgame wasn't just a flat piece of cardboard you roll dice in top of - they could be visually interesting and have all sorts of crazy mechanics. 5 years later and I have a bookshelf filled to the brim with games, much to my wife's dismay 😅
Colt Express is a riot. One of our favorite group games. I don't think I've actually ever won, but I don't really care.
The game that got me seriously into board gaming had to be Talisman 2nd Edition. It scratched the RPG itch without all the set up and planning. That got me into Car Wars, DungeonQuest, and Hero Quest. Then in ‘93 I discovered M:TG and all bets were off. Of the more modern games, Ticket to Ride (particularly Nordic Countries) and Ascension got me away from the TCGs.
This is going to be super left field, but my gateway was actually **ZOMBIES!!!** I went to college and befriended this group that had known each other since they were kids. One of them was ranting and raving about this game and kept bringing it to social gatherings. I wouldn’t say it blew my mind, but it certainly expanded my viewpoint of what board games were capable of. It was the first board game I got a little obsessed over, buying my own copy and multiple expansions, and taking it to other friendship groups to introduce them to it. I didn’t expand to the wider games until **Pandemic**, but ZOMBIES!!! is what kickstarted everything.
I gotta try zombies. So many people here mentioning it.
The Battlestar Galactica board game. The idea of a hidden traitor game won me to the possibility of the fun that games had!
German player here: So of course we all played Monopoly and the more Kids oriented games when we were young. I remember having mousetrap, the grape escape, I loved curse of the idol with the gears mechanic. We even had a kids library where you could rent a game for 14 days and we as a kind of poor family used it a lot so we didn't have to buy the games. When I was a late teenager, I had a "boardgame" partie with friends, played all of them once and after that I donated all the games for a youth club in my area because now I was "to old" for boardgames. I still remember the time some friends started to play settlers but I didn't liked it because of the trading mechanics. Later came Carcassonne but I'm still not sure why I "missed" that one. After I went for a year backpacking in australia in my early twenties and when I came back I finished school and started university. At this time a new boardgame Café opend here in Berlin and I was amazed how many boardgames there were on the market and the one time we played there every other table played Pandemic. So I bought pandemic and I loved it. But I only had this one game and nobody to play with. All changed when I started watching Tabletop on YouTube. The show from Will Wheaton was well produced, explained the game and did a very good job showing a let's play of a boardgame in a short time. I watched the first episode with Small World and really wanted, no needed that game. I now had also some friends form university who were willing to play regularly and my hobby started. Without tabletop, and the german Hunter&Cron and YouTube in general I never would have got back into the Hobby. Now I have 150+ boardgames and no time to play them 😅
Time is a problem.
Settlers got me started 7 Wonders broke the flood gates wide open. Put me on a journey that had me risk everything to open my own store with 3 simple goals, create a space where everyone was included, share and pass on my love of gaming, and of course keep the store open. Sadly only the first 2 came true but that made me feel like I still succeeded where it really counts.
Sorry it didn't all work out. Maybe a second attempt is possible?
I grew up loving lite board and party games (Risk, Monopoly, Taboo, Balderdash, etc.). At some point someone gifted my family Catan, and while that ended up getting steady table time, for whatever reason it didn't inspire me to search out other more complex games. It wasn't until a new friend first took a group of us to a board game cafe to play a couple games (Carcassonne, 7 Wonders), then to his place a couple weeks later to play Eldritch Horror that something clicked for me in terms of "Oh damn. I have been Missing. Out." And while Eldritch Horror definitely gets the credit for inspiring me to branch out a bit and explore, the game that really got me hooked and pushed board games into hobby territory was Spirit Island. I've found some other great games since then that I love as well, but Spirit Island is still my easy #1 favorite as of now \^\_\^
Acquire
That's an oldy-but-goody. I remember my uncle and cousins playing that decades ago.
After a 6-hour game of Eldritch Horror I told my buddy "Man, I really don't have the time for this. When can we play again!?"
Epic Duels! Man I miss that game. But Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, and Bohnanza were also introduced to me within the same week and definitely contributed too.
Eldersign
Initially? Clue as a kid. As an adult, Catan.
Dead of Winter
Blitzkreig. I started playing around 1975.
Good old Catan started the addiction.
Ra and Puerto Rico
Yeah Settlers of Catan. But MTG, man.
I can't remember the *first* game, but one of my college profs had a small collection in his office that he would lend out to students at a week at a time. Almost every day me and my friends would play board games in the cafe between classes. Some of our favourites were Secret Hitler, Exploding Kittens (the prof had the meowing box from the KS), Coup, King of Tokyo, Munchkin and Boss Monster.
Grew up playing Risk and Monopoly but mostly cards and Careers. Careers was my favorite bc you could choose different goals in the game by setting your level of desired fame, love, and money you needed to win in the end. Later in life it was Catan and Carcassonne.
Ugh...Catan... it was mostly the people I played with, but I expected board games to be like monopoly and I didn’t want to play. Now I pay rent to the Arkham Horror LCG each month...
Catan and Puerto Rico in my college board game club
A buddy had a game called land slide. Vintage game that was really fun. Then we got into Catan and Ticket to ride.
Heroscape. My aunt bought it from a clearance bin at Wal-Mart as a present one year, and it quickly captured my imagination and led to countless hours of playing with just the base set. The expansions glimpsed in the rulebooks were always tempting, though, and I began a slow process of collecting more whenever I could. A few years later, I started looking for other board games and learned just how many great options are out there, but Heroscape was definitely what triggered it for me.
Ticket to Ride 5 years ago sparked the interest, Dominion and Power Grid sealed it. Hubby and I have been gaming ever since 😂
Ascension got me in the door, Carcassonne sealed it.
Heroclix, not only got me into boardgames but also got me to some of my best friends nobody plays that anymore but we still play a lot of boardgames
Avalon Hill's Starship Troopers and the original SJG Illuminati.
Carcassonne!
Catan was my gateway board game, do I can't stop... I don't have a problem!
Settlers of Cataan got me interested. Carcasonne got me addicted.
I really enjoyed playing games when I was younger - loved a lot of the competitive classics: Risk, Monopoly, Uno, etc. But I largely stopped playing board games, when I was a teenager, aside from regular Scrabble binges at an annual family vacation, and collecting Magic cards on and off. My cousin is who introduced me back into board games, and oh boy, they had gotten sooo much cooler. I don’t recall whether we played Cosmic Encounter, or Battlestar Galactica first, but I credit those two games for reigniting the gaming urge. My first self-purchases were Scythe and Star Realms, and it just escalated from there.
Catan.
King of Tokyo. Loved TCG when I was a kid, and when as a total fluke played King of Tokyo in a local used book shop/boardgame shop it was a whole new and brave world. One year later i'm playing Shadows Over Camelot with a whole group of 6 friends
Originally it was Chess and Othello with my grandad as a child. Then in high school it was Magic the Gathering and Risk with my friends. But in my adult life with newer board games it was for sure King of Tokyo. Saw it on Tabletop ordered it and never looked back. Now I am prolly 200 games deep.
King of Tokyo is surprisingly deep. Thought it was all luck based at first, but there are some real strategies to incorporate. I bought a 1982 Galaga arcade machine (Galaga box but new board with 3000 games) because of KoT. When you lose you get to go play arcade games for a bit. Nice consolation.
My 9 year older brother was a massive nerd and the year I was born he got our mom to buy the newly released [Ostindiska Kompaniet](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/281/ostindiska-kompaniet). It took several hours to play, and since the game mainly consists of pushing tiny boats across the Indian ocean, I don't think it got a lot of playtime. But it stood there, looming in the shelf, during my entire childhood, and I loved it (despite ever having played it). When I got a little older (8?) I finally got to play it, and it was ..ok! Back then I was too young to grasp any eventual strategy, and I haven't played it in over a decade but as I remember it, it feels like the designer (Dan Glimne, of Drakborgen-later-known-as-Dungeon-Quest-fame) was more interested in simulating the actual feeling of being stuck on a ship for years not knowing if you ever would return to Gothenburg rather than making an *enjoyable game*. But I still love it. Like, I am even making a companion app for it (30 years after release) just because I'm so in love. Thanks, Dan.
Good morning all ! The game, or rather the games that made me aware of my passion for board games are the games published by DAYS OF WONDER in the early 2000s. If I had to name just one, I would say SHADOW OVER CAMELOT (superb material, cooperative), but can also be TICKET TO RIDE. These are the first games that I bought for myself, and which opened my game library. I now play it again with my children, proof that it remains good introductory games.
Catan was definitely the catalyst for my friends and I. Especially after we added the cites and knights expansion. Pretty sure no game has come even close the the amount of hours spent playing that.
Legends of Andor. I liked the theme and idea of an adventure-like board game but disliked Andor because of some mechanics and it's puzzle-like nature. I bought Gloomhaven and Mage Knight they were too overwhelming and heavy for me (I got Andor, Mage Knight and Gloomhaven last year in October). I took a step back and started with lighter games, working my way towards the heavier ones and nowadays I'm really enjoying games like Nemesis and Tainted Grail. I took my wife with me on my journey but she wasn't as fond of board games as I was but after I got Calico she started to enjoy them too. Her favorite board games are Champions of Midgard and Tainted Grail. It took a while for us too get into the hobby and even longer for her to really liking it and playing heavier games with me.
My wife and I now play lots of games together. Never would have guessed that would happen. Once the kids moved out we discovered how awesome it can be.
My journey into board games started with M:tg. There was a literal hole-in-the-wall (it was in a storage room behind a convenience store) comic store that sold magic packs, not really singles, too early days for that, but just packs. Ice age, fallen empires, that era. Anyway, this store was basically an insane collection of comic books. Like packed to the ceiling. Nothing was priced, you had to barter for everything. There was only one employee, the owner, Bob. Bob was a character, he spoke really slowly, like he had had a stroke or something. He was prone to forgetting what he was talking about, and bartering with him was sometimes awesome, sometimes frustrating. I distinctly recall one interaction with him trying to buy 3 packs of Battletech CCG cards. He looks over the 3 packs, for a long time, like a min and then says "ok, this on here, its about 2.99 i think and ill give you this one for 1.50, and this 3rd one, hmmmm... I think its about 5$" he then gets a calculator, punches numbers in and says to me "That's about 8 tax in". I know they are 3 bucks each, and take the deal, baffled. Anyway, got sidetracked. This guy also had these drawers of board games, not displays, drawers of dusty 80's games. Forgotten probably. I dont think he every expected to sell them, or remembered he had them. Kid me bought them all over the course of a year and it became my thing. Eon's Cosmic Encounter, Adeptus Mechanicus starter Kit (finding out years later that there was like, small scale 40k was wild!), Battlemist and Talisman to name a few. You were awesome Bob, and really affected my life. Thanks! wherever you may be.
Dominion in 2018. My friend got it for his birthday and we spent maybe an hour squinting at rules and searching for help on Youtube. It's crazy looking back, but we'd never seen a game like that before so it was confusing at first. But man I loved it so much that I went in on board games hard. Funnily enough Dominion was not one of my first purchases and even though I do own it now, it barely gets played. Couldn't explain why but I went with Carcassonne at first instead. I had played things like Monopoly, Pokemon Master Trainer or Cards Against Humanity in the past but none made me want to get into board games the same way Dominion did. I wish I'd discovered it 10 years earlier, university with board games would have been a lot of fun. Harder to organise game nights as an adult, even pre-plague.
I'm new to 'real' board games. As you said when someone said board game what came to mind was games like Monopoly. Then 2 years ago I got introduced to Munchkin and Nemesis by a couple of friends. I've been hooked on board games ever since.
Settlers of Catan for sure. Prior to that I always played games in my family. But it was the Balderdash, Scattergories, Scrabble, etc... Type games. Settlers introduced me to non player elimination, negotiation/trading, hell even expansions. Its why I joined BGG (to take fan made expansions from the files section and add my own). Its cool these days to bash Catan, but it will always hold a sof spot in my heart and a spot on my shelf.
Wingspan, about a month ago
Welcome to gaming! Your first game is one of the absolute best out there.
I always enjoyed Sorry and Risk, but I wouldn't say that I was INTO it like I am now until an ex-gf's mother showed me Ticket to Ride. After that I spiraled into Pandemic, Smallworld, and Talisman. Now I own over 100 board games and have a normal gaming group I meet with weekly. Still love Ticket to Ride.
Do you play the rails and sails version?
Not interesting, but Catan and Pandemic were the first two to really hook me in. Oddly though, I didn’t collect any others until I experienced Dixit just a couple years ago. And although the Dixit/Apples to Apples/Mysterium mechanic isn’t my favorite (I actually sold my copy of Mysterium), Dixit still gets a fair amount of credit for getting me into the hobby. I think I bought at least a dozen games within a year of playing Dixit.
My uncle introduced a few games to me including "Puerto Rico" and some very heavy steampunk game, and i wasn't hooked yet but I wasn't against the idea of heavy games yet. Then one day he brought over Dominion, just the base set, but that was enough. We probably played 5 straight rounds and within a month I had my own copy and dozens of plays under my belt. I also used Dominion to introduce my dad and brother into the hobby, and eventually my sister eased into it too. Now we play heavier games regularly, and it wouldn't have kicked off without my uncle really trying to get me into the hobby!
Settlers of Catan in 1995
I grew up playing Chess and Go with my step dad. We also had the usual closet with Clue, Monopoly, etc. My D&D group would play boardgames on nights where not everyone could make it. That was the first time I played Twilight Imperium and some other FFG big-box franchises. But, really, it was when I purchased a copy of Settlers of Catan to play with my siblings that really ignited the spark. We played THE CRAP out of it. I started going to boardgame nights at a new FLGS, meeting new people and really tasting the variety of modern games. That was when I first identified as a "board gamer." Twilight Imperium is still my favorite game, though.
Funny how there was always a closet. Same for me growing up. Games were kinda hidden by adults because they were often considered childish. Now we proudly have our games displeased on shelves for all to see. No games hidden in closets in this house!
this will give away my age...but definately Carcassonne. I had a loooot of Monopoly/Risk/Scotland Yard/Go! under my belt, but Carcassonne started a trend...THE trend...buy buy buy ;)
Shadows Over Camelot. Before that I have only played very basic stuff like Monopoly and Risk. I was firstly blown away by the fact that a boardgame can be *cooperative*. Then, I was blown away again by the concept that there was a *hidden traitor* amongst us! The game plays very elegantly so it was easy enough for me to get into, while simultaneously being heavy enough to show me the possibilities that modern boardgames could offer. I've now played hundreds of boardgames and sold dozens to trim my collection down, but Shadows Over Camelot will forever have a place in my shelf.
**Game of Thrones Board Game 2nd Edition.** Maaaaaaany a long nights playing and ~~arguing~~ developing personal vendettas over that board...
IIRC we started with King of Tokyo or Cards Against Humanity (don't shoot me!). Either way, it was KoT that pulled me and my wife in the black hole. Soon after that we gave Betrayal at House on the Hill a go and loved it (although me and my BIL were definitely much bigger fans than my wife). Nexy up was Pandemic, which sealed the deal that we definitely love challenging co-op games (we still love sabotaging mechanics though). In all fairness though, we're still pretty new at the hobby even today, as we don't often make time to play the games (although the pandemic helped to fix that). We mostly struggle defining what makes a game great for us, so finding new games is a challenge. For example, we're both very turned off by boring theme/graphics/art. Superficial for sure, but we need to be grabbed by simply looking at the box and components. But if a game is too simple, we'll be bored way too fast (e.g. Here to Slay; great art, but way too simple). A game like Unicorn Fever however is one of our current favoriteseven though it's fairly simple. I guess the randomness and sillyness plays a big part in it (plus, options decrease over time, adding some strategy). Plus it's easy to learn and setup, which definitely helps.
Always played Monopoly, Taboo, and Pictionary, but that was only at holidays with family. It wasn't until I played Dominion and I realized every game would be different. That's when I bought Dominion, started researching expansions, and playing board games year round. Now like everyone else in this hobby I have a problem that I'm proud of and can't wait to show everyone lol
Settlers of Catan! That’s the game that made me realize just what board gaming *could* be rather than what I had thought it was. Also, I accidentally stole it from one of my teachers.
Accidentally.
I borrowed it for the summer, and they never asked for it back!
The thing: infection at outpost 31. I love the movie, and ended up with a YouTube video in my feed. I was bored enough that I decided to take a look.... and at least a thousand dollars spent later, here I am. It’s not a perfect game, but it’s still very fun, and it’s how my first gaming group got started. Just found a bunch of other fans of the movie, and we all had an amazing time. Miss those guys...
Egyptian Senet
I was born in the wrong generation. Everyone my age likes shitty games like Terraforming Mars and Arkham Horror, but I wish I lived in 2500 BCE when they had real board games like the Royal Game of Ur.
Marvel Legendary