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Thanksgiving waddles into our homes this week—and that makes it the perfect time to introduce non-gaming friends and family to some terrific board games. Ars staffers have compiled a list of some of their favorite party and "gateway" games especially suited to more casual holiday play sessions. Be the hit of your holiday by bringing something new and surprising.

Designer: Susan McKinley Ross

Publisher: Mindware

Players: 2-4

You'd be forgiven for thinking that Qwirkle, with its bright colors and shapes, is a kids' game. But Qwirkle's 108 wooden squares actually make for a terrific abstract title that's as accessible to in-laws as to 8-year olds. The game won the prestigious Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) from German game critics in 2011, and while it's on the lighter side for that award, the accolade is well-deserved.

In Qwirkle, each wooden square displays one of six shapes, each printed in one of six colors. Players take turns adding pieces to a growing grid of rows and columns, observing one rule: each turn you can add only to a single line, which can contain either different colors or different shapes (but not both)—no color or shape can repeat. Thus, the maximum length of each particular segment is six squares, which is called a "Qwirkle." That scores double points.

The simple mechanic produces some wonderful moments as players look for opportunities to make their single line count for maximum points—say, by intersecting with another line. Easy to teach and quick to play, Qwirkle is a perfect fit for family gatherings. It doesn't "look" like a gamer's game and thus won't put off people who wouldn't get within ten feet of Lords of Waterdeep (see below), but it has enough pattern-matching depth to keep everyone entertained.

Colt Express ($28)

Designer: Christophe Raimbault

Publisher: Ludonaute

Players: 2-6

Look: the game comes with a fully 3D cardboard train. You play one of six bandits, each with different powers. And you're robbing the train while trying to avoid other players and the marshal meeple. How can you go wrong?

Colt Express is a programmable movement game where players ponder their next actions, play them (in the form of cards) into a single group pile, and then execute them one at a time. Hilarity usually ensues as plans are inevitably disrupted, treasure that you set your heart on is gone, and the marshal has moved. By the time your action is executed, everyone's locations on the train has changed, someone has probably shot at you, and the marshal may have startled you up to the roof of your train car—but you have to proceed with your action anyway. It's mayhem, and it won 2015's Spiel des Jahres for its family appeal.

(Note: assembling the train can take 20 minutes. Plan accordingly if you open this on Thanksgiving and expect to be playing immediately.)

Designer: Vlaada Chvátil

Publisher: Czech Games

Players: 2-?

New this year, Codenames is already the number one party game in the massive board game database at BoardGameGeek.

Players divide into two teams, and each team picks a "spymaster" to give clues to the other team members. Words are arranged in a 5x5 grid on the table.

The game's genius lies in the fact that all players from both teams can see the complete grid of words at all times, while only the spymasters can see the chart showing which words belong to which team. Some other words don't belong to either team but to "innocent bystanders." If chosen, these result only in the end of a turn. And one word belongs to the game-ending assassin, so the spymasters must make doubly sure that any clue they give can't possibly be interpreted as pointing to that card.

The trick is finding a clue that can span two, three, or even four words (very hard) at once—knowing full well that the more words you aim at, the more tenuous the link between the codenames and your clue will invariably become. (The manual explicitly warns spymasters not to tell their teams that a particular clue might be a bit of a stretch. "You are playing Codenames," it says. "It's always a bit of a stretch.")

For those making the guesses, the game is all about trying to decide how far a spymaster's mind might go. If the clue is "sucks, three," might the cards be both "octopus," "vacuum," and even.... "war?"

This is a terrific party game and eminently suitable to non-gamers.

Ticket to Ride: Europe ($35)

Designer: Alan R. Moon

Publisher: Days of Wonder

Players: 2-5

Heavier than a party game but still appealing to board game newbies, the Ticket to Ride series has been hailed as the ultimate in "gateway games." Ticket to Ride: Europe, my personal favorite in the series, mixes a huge board with larger play cards and a few new wrinkles (tunnels and ferries and stations) to provide a super-satisfying dose of track-laying gameplay.

Ticket to Ride is all about laying rail routes across the continent, earnings points from connecting cities and even more points from completing route cards and having the longest continuous train line in the game. Players draw colored cards into their hands and play them to build the routes. Gameplay is fluid, the rules are straightforward, but Ticket to Ride still manages to pose interesting route optimization problems—especially when Uncle Fred fills the link from Paris to Dieppe that you were counting on to complete a longer route.

This huge and well-deserved hit is perfect for a night of family gaming.

Wits & Wagers ($20) and Say Anything ($16.50)

Publisher: North Star Games

Players: 3-7, 3-8

North Star traffics in family-friendly party games, and these two “dry-erase games” are among the few that we would attach the phrase “fun for the whole family” without feeling gross for saying so. In both games, players are given a small dry-erase board and marker and must write out answers to various questions, but to what end varies pretty wildly. In the case of Wits & Wagers, players make numerical guesses for questions such as “what is the fastest recorded speed of a fish in miles per hour”—which is to say, the questions are usually a little wacky, as opposed to ones that people will have legitimate guesses for. Once the group’s answers have been collected, players then vote on which guess is the closest without going over (as in, Price is Right rules).

Meanwhile, Say Anything feels a bit more like a relationship test on a party-gaming scale. Each turn has one player act as judge and ask the group to answer a question that always begins with the phrase, “In my opinion”—such as, “in my opinion, what is the best romantic comedy of all time” or “in my opinion, how will I one day become famous?” The rest of the table writes down and submits their guesses, which, depending on the judge in question, might be better to phrase seriously or goofily. Once the judge has seen them all, he or she picks an answer, and then the rest of the table votes on what they think was chosen. Ultimately, both games are more about reacting to silly questions at a rapid pace than about utter mastery, though we preferred Say Anything due to how easily its best jokes and silly moments can jump from G-rated to R-rated based on whoever’s participating.