Board Games and Tabletop Games

My lady and I have been enjoying the tabletop game 7 Wonders DUEL.
It's a new-ish version of a larger game, 7 Wonders, but specifically made for 2 players.

TL;DR
A) it has lots of pieces. Mostly cards, but also cardboard coins and a couple of kinds of tokens and a plastic thing.
B) Even though the game is played with cards, and there is technically a "board" involved, it plays like a board game.
C) It took about an hour to learn and play the first game, but it plays out in under 30 minutes now that we're familiar with it.


It's a collecting game where you take turns pulling cards from a common pile, gathering various resources and points and schtuffs. Each player has 4 wonders, but only 7 total wonders may be built. They have extra bonus powers or are worth loads of points. Taking all these cards amounts to building your city.

The game progresses through 3 ages, each with a different deck of communal cards, which ramp up as each age goes on. A few cards are removed from each deck at the start of the game to add variety in replays. There are 12 total wonder cards in the game, but only 8 are in any game, and only 7 of those can be played.

It's a mid-level strategy game and you'll find yourself counting into the communal pile to see if it's possible for you to draw or block your opponent on a certain card in the later ages.

You can win by science or military or raw points when all the cards are gone from the common pile.
There are tons of unique little mechanics and "power tokens" which can alter your strategic push in the game.


Any recommendations for good non-video games?

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Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey

Any recommendations for good non-video games?

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Exploding Kittens

Holy shit this is a fun game!!

Slight variation on the standard card game dynamic. On your turn, you play cards from your hand, and pick up from a draw pile. In that order. Typical card games begin with drawing a card and ending a turn with a discard. This is the opposite. You play cards from your hand, and then your turn ends when you pick up.

If you pick up an exploding kitten (EK). You explode. And if you explode, your dead. And if you're dead, you can't play, so you're out of the game. Enjoy being exploded to death.

When you set up the game, you only use one fewer EK cards than there are players. So a deck for a 4 player game would have 3 exploding kittens. Whoever doesn't get exploded to death, wins.

Every player begins the game with one "Diffuse" card. You can use that card to negate the effects of an exploding kitten. So you pick up an EK, but instead of being exploded to death, you play your diffuse card and you live. Then....the fun part. You get to put the EK back into the draw pile, secretly, wherever you want. So you can stack the deck to deal the EK to whoever you want.

The cards in your hand and that you pick up from the draw pile all have various effects.
FAVOR - You can choose a random card from an opposing player's hand and take it (important to remember who has used their diffuse cards already)
ATTACK - End your turn without drawing a card, the next player must take 2 turns
SKIP - End your turn without drawing a card
SEE THE FUTURE - Secretly look at the top 3 cards in the deck
SHUFFLE - Shuffle the draw pile
STOP - Play this at any time (even if it's not your turn) to cancel a card played by another player. Ex. The player to your right attempts to play an ATTACK card. You play a STOP, negating the action. So it's still his turn. He has to pick up a card.

I'm probably missing some stuff. But one round of the game takes about 15 minutes, so it's great to play with a small crowd since you can play several times. And you will want to play several times. The strategy is deep enough to be compelling and competitive, but simple enough to be easy to learn and really fun to play.

There's also a lot of points in the game where someone will have to decide who they wanna screw over....and if you've got a good group for that sort of thing, the game is shit loads of fun.