CunningAllusionment
A simple and elegant game with a light theme and a good deal of randomness. A surprising amount of strategy to play with. Tons of replayability, especially because of the changing scoring conditions
- Kingdom Builder
This is a beautiful, elegant, 4X space game. The tension and balance of resource management and between each race is excellent. It's a phenomenal blend of Ameritrash and Eurogame.
- Eclipse
This stand alone Dominion expansion adds a bit of interactivity and complexity to the card pool. Definitely worth getting if you like Dominion or want to play with 6 players.
- Dominion: Intrigue
After playing this daily with 10 year olds, I'll be happy to never play it again. It's a "good" party game, but the magic is gone for me and I much prefer other party games.
- Apples to Apples
Attractive and relatively simple balance between resource management and tile laying. The scoring system is interesting and unique. Tons of expansions.
- Alhambra
A solitaire crossword building race. It's a fun, light, fast-paced family word game that doesn't favor extensive vocabularies as much as games like Scrabble or Boggle.
- Bananagrams
This is one of the games that got me into hobby gaming. Beware adding too many expansions, it makes the game too long for what it is. Randomly removing X tiles face down at the start works ok.
- Carcassonne
If it wasn't for The Resistance, I'd say it was the best game per cubic inch around, as it is, it'll have to settle for a second. Great mind game.
- Citadels
Draw 5, play a card, buy a card, discard, repeat. The game is that simple, but there's tons of subtlety. It created the deck building genre and with its expansions is still arguably one of the best.
- Dominion
This game can literally be explained in three sentences that a six year old can understand, yet it's strategically interesting. I prefer it with the full 4 players. Great game for non-gamer types.
- Blokus
Beautiful game with rich theme, but is too long with too much fiddly bookkeeping and not enough fiero or challenge to make it worth it. The expansions add challenge, but it shouldn't take $100+.
- Arkham Horror
A medium-weight game that plays 7 in 45 minutes? With tons of subtlety, variability, and direct and indirect interaction, it fills a unique niche in my collection.
- 7 Wonders
It's not just that luck plays a big part, it's just much more of a tactical game than a strategic one. It's too complex for casual play but not deep enough for hardcore play. It's an uneasy middle.
- Race for the Galaxy