I've recently got back into board games - in part due to wanting to find some things I could relate to my nieces on in my
crucial role as the cool uncle, and wanting to make a point of avoiding the games that everyone
knows but aren't actually very good (Monopoly, Ludo, Snakes and Ladders, for instance!)
The
big one that was an immense hit with them was Incan Gold (Also called Diamant depending on the edition), a push-your-luck game where the actual
decisions required are very simple (On each turn, escape with your current loot or keep going) but the tactics and excitement - and a bit of light anticipating your opponents - are great. Also, you get a little dinky tent to keep your loot in. Everyone
loves the tents.
Other games I've tried with them that had been successful:
Kingdomino: Big success as well, it's pleasingly tactile and making the strategic decisions are accessible enough while being interesting and engaging.
Loony Quest: Nice dexterity game that's not trivial for adults but still enjoyable for kids
For Sale: Other than a slight hurdle of teaching the concept of an auction, this is a good mix of strategic bidding and then anticipating your opponent's moves
Codenames: This is one of those games that works with
anyone. I'm currently running a lunchtime gaming hour at work, and it's going down a storm there, too; great for adults *and* great for kids, although depending on the age you might need to get their confirmation that they're comfortable with the randomly-selected group of words that are in play. It's a team game of word association, and it's got a number of branded variants if they happen to be Marvel, Harry Potter, Disney or Simpsons fans.
Things I haven't
played with them, but I gifted them over various christmasses and birthdays and they seemed to go down well:
Ice Cool: Another dexterity game of controlled flicking; not too dissimilar from PitchCar, but a bit less unwieldy!
Rhino Hero: A balance game that was recommended as an effective alternative to Jenga with some fun differences.
The Magic Labyrinth: Not to be confused with the better-known The Amazing Labyrinth, this is a memory game where you have to navigate a labyrinth with invisible walls - so you need to recall where you encountered walls as you go through it.
Bugs in the Kitchen: A fun action game where you're manipulating the walls of a maze to try to guide the randomly-moving bug into your opponent's kitchens.
Less successful, but I'd still recommend them:
Hey, That's My Fish: I didn't do a good job of explaining this, I think. It's still a good game with several layers of interesting tactics.
Sushi Go: Another I didn't explain very well. They're older now, I intend to give it another go when I see them again.
Planning to try for the future:
Quirky Circuits: I like to emphasise games with a little bit of worthwhile educational content (Incan Gold, basic division and light odds analysis). Quirky Circuits is a new release that's got some light programming concepts that should be useful for them.
Cockroach Poker: I've not really introduced them much to games based around bluffing and lying, so that's going to be an upcoming avenue. Through bluffing, convince your opponents to take detrimental cards, but if they call your bluff correctly, you'll get them instead.
Deep Sea Adventure: Given their fondness for Incan Gold and
my general desire to guide them towards some co-operative games, I'm hoping this might bridge the gap a little; a similar concept of pushing your luck to gather treasure as you dive into some sunken ruins, but this, while it's competitive, also has a slight bit of shared responsibility in that everyone shares the same air tank!
General advice: My starting-off point was to look at winners and nominees for the
Spiel des Jahres each year, which is an excellent place to get game recommendations when you're hitting the genre seriously for the first time.
(For the record: My nieces are now 9 and 11, but I last spent most time and tried most games with them a couple of years ago when they would have been 7 and 9)
Or, if you want the TL;DR: Incan Gold or Codenames. Both great games, both not offensively simple for
adults to play too.
Edit: Oh, a corollary that I should mention: I have also got Forbidden Island, but haven't yet brought it to the table for them - because from observing them on a few games I came to the conclusion that their tastes - at least at the time - favoured games where the
decision space is quite small and simple; that doesn't mean the game as a whole has to be simple, of course, but overwhelming them with options on their turn didn't work for them, at least when starting out. I suspect this is something that varies somewhat from person to person, so you might want to observe their play a little to see what they take to.
That said, I do intend to try Forbidden Island again at some point... because I live in hope of getting them to Pandemic some day!
Edit2: Oh, I'd completely forgotten that I'd played Dixit with them too, although that was when they were very young (5 and 7, I think? Possibly 4 and 6). I think it worked quite well but I'm not sure they fully engaged with it. It'd not be a bad idea to try that again.
Dixit's an interestingly abstract game where you tell brief one-sentence stories which try to convey an idea of a card containing some surreal imagery. It's a very
different experience and as such there's no guarantee if people would take to it, but it's quite beautiful if they do.
