Throughout our board games week we’re hoping to show that there is huge variety in modern tabletop gaming, from deeply strategic and demanding new hits to family classics that hold their appeal for generations of players.

Here, our gaming writers discuss their favourite titles, some new, some old, some tactically rich, some … well, not so much.

Have a read, then add your own favourites at the end.



Will Freeman

Dixit

While numerous tabletop titles come drenched with jargon and rules, Dixit is free of such complexity. It’s a game of beautiful illustrations and semiotic trickery. Players must describe dream-like images presented on lavishly printed cards, the aim being to mislead some rivals into an incorrect identification, while encouraging others to get it right. It’s all about treading the fine line between being too obvious and too obscure, and it beautifully reflects the social dynamic – becoming puerile and silly with one group of friends, or serious and musing with others.

Terror in Meeple City

Previously known as Rampage, Terror in Meeple City is a game of smashing things. After building a cartoon cardboard city from the set’s chunky components, players take control of large wooden Godzilla-like monsters who just want to destroy. The game does away with traditional inputs like dice, instead getting you to chuck your monster at buildings, or use your lung power to literally blow them down. It’s chaotic, but there are just enough rules and constraints to make this high spirited game strategic and methodical.

The Rivals for Catan

Settlers of Catan is contemporary board gaming’s gateway drug, but it needs a minimum of three players, and for some, its elegant system exists at the expense of detail. Which is where two-player triumph The Rivals for Catan comes in. Competitors must gradually construct competing towns, placing buildings, fields and roads. The settlements emerge as self-sufficient tabletop tableaus that need to balance their own ecosystems of commerce, manufacturing and services. It’s gentle and immensely rewarding.



Hannah Jane Parkinson

Jenga

I can’t even think about Jenga without breaking into a sweat. Players take turns to remove blocks from a criss-cross wooden tower, a task that increases in difficulty as the edifice becomes less stable. The pressure on your turn as you probe for pliable bricks is comparable to a game of Operation when your pincers delve into a body cavity, the buzzer waiting.



I see that wooden tower block in my nightmares. It is a form of torture. Top tip: play with people who are more of an emotional wreck than you. Or more drunk.

Jenga Photograph: Felix Clay

Guess Who

This is such a simple game. Two players pick a character card each, and then guess who their opponent holds by asking questions to eliminate possible options. The wonderful thing is that the set-up is so fatally flawed – picking a character with a prominent but rare characteristic means you’re basically screwed from the off. But the fun is in personalising the characters and nerdily creating backstories. Alfred looks like a Twin Peaks extra while Susan’s rosy cheeks point to a drinking problem.



Shithead

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that every university dorm contains a poster of Bob Marley and a deck of cards in order to play Shithead: the official card game of students everywhere.

There are many versions but the key element consists of laying down cards above or equal to the value of the card in the main play pile. It’s the super powered wildcards that really make the game – the best is a 10, which “burns” the whole pile. The winner is the first player to get rid of all cards; the loser is whoever is last (the eponymous Shithead). Nightly sessions of this game remain one of my favourite memories of higher education.



Owen Duffy

Snake Oil

There are few genuinely funny board games but Snake Oil is one of them. Players take the role of salespeople trying to offload a succession of ridiculous products. Each round sees one player acting as a customer who’ll listen to other player’s pitches before deciding on one item they’d like to buy.

The hilarity comes from the fact that the salespeople’s wares and the customer’s identity are determined by randomly drawn cards. How do you flog “danger cheese” to a fashion model? Or “pleasure pyjamas” to a politician? It’s a fantastic opportunity to discover your inner Del Boy.

Kingdom Builder

Kingdom Builder tasks you with forging a nation that meet the needs of its people. Trouble is, the needs of the people change every time you play. Each game begins with players drawing cards to see what sort of citizens will populate their fledgling state. You might have fishermen who want access to water or miners who need to be near mountains, etc.

The board is created from a collection of modular segments so the geography varies from game to game; players can also obtain special abilities that help them seize the most valuable territory. It’s incredibly simple, but every decision is crucial.

Magic, The Gathering cards Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Guardian

Magic: the Gathering

In this well-established fantasy card game, players become powerful beings known as Planeswalkers able to travel between dimensions, cast deadly spells and summon mighty armies to battle their enemies.

Participants build decks from packets of randomly allocated cards, and the process of constructing an effective deck is as much a part of the game as actually playing a match. You might try to batter your opponent with one or two rampaging monsters, swarm them with a massive force of ordinary soldiers or frustrate their plans with spells that restrict their abilities. The tactical possibilities are incredibly varied and constantly evolving. The game also boasts a compelling backstory and the cards feature stunning fantasy artwork.

Alex Hern

Space Cadets

This is a co-operative game where you play the crew of a starship, boldly going where no one has gone before. Each player has a specific skill game to perform which makes their section of the ship work, but all those little roles have to be done in the same 30-second period – with just three minutes to rest, plan the next round, and recover before it happens again.

It is a very silly game that you will probably lose repeatedly because, say, the person who is supposed to be manning the sensors can’t tell the difference between a small cardboard T and a small cardboard L by touch alone.



Android: Netrunner

A two-player asymmetric card game set in a cyberpunk future, Netrunner pits a lone “runner” against the might of a mega-corporation, tasking them with hacking servers and stealing information on nefarious agendas like advertising on the moon or unethical human experimentation. On its own, the core pack provides one of the all-time great card games, but it’s when players take a look at the options for growing the set (so far 17 “data packs” and two “deluxe expansions”) that the sheer scale of the thing becomes clear.



Ticket to Ride

This quick and accessible game tasks players with building a railroad across America in the golden age of steam. If participants complete their secret route, they get points, and if they don’t, they lose them.



The catch: only one player’s railroad can connect any two given cities. Do you move first to grab the connections you need, or hold back to avoid tipping your hand? Do you focus on the cards you need, which might give away where you’re heading next, or take a few random cards to disguise your goal but slow down your building? Then there’s the option of going for longer more bountiful routes, or shorter, more attainable ones. It’s more fiendishly challenging than the National Rail Enquiries website, and certainly more fun.

