5 Tabletop Presents For Your Non-Gaming Friends

Christmas is coming close and it’s that time again - presents! But what about those friends that you want to get into board games? Or those friends that are looking to join in the fun but don’t know where to begin? Well we’re here to give a quick list of games that make fantastic presents.

Sushi Go!

This game is an absolute must for anyone new to board gaming. Sushi Go! is a quick and easy pick-and-pass game where players compete over three rounds to build the best sushi platter. It takes only 15 to 20 minutes to get through a game so it’s great not only for newer players, but the more experienced gamers to use a game between games. Despite its simplicity, Sushi Go comes out at nearly every Vault Games event and no one has a bad time playing it.

Fluxx

Fluxx is a great game for beginners solely because of it’s rules. It starts with two of them: Draw One Card at the start of your turn; Play One Card during your turn. As you play though, the rules can change at any time as players use Rule Cards. What makes it great for beginners is that the game slowly introduces players to gradually more complex situations instead of forcing them to make sense of multi-page rulebooks.

Now, Fluxx isn’t just a game, it’s a series. There’s Star Fluxx, Pirate Fluxx, Zombie Fluxx, Cthulhu Fluxx and for those that are fans of various cartoons, there’s also Regular Show Fluxx, Adventure Time Fluxx and Batman Fluxx. There is a version of Fluxx available for every fan base.

Dixit

How often do you play a game without any text on the cards? Well, Dixit is a game about art that features nothing but art. On each turn, a player describes their chosen card with a sentence or phrase. Each other player then chooses a card from their hand that best matches the description and then, once these cards are all shuffled and placed face up, everyone votes on which card they think is the starting player’s. Points are awarded depending if no one gets the card, if only a few players get the right cards, if someone chooses your card instead of the starting player’s or if everyone chooses correctly. It’s a fantastic game of imagination that can bring out the artist in anyone.

Codenames

Codenames is the party game of 2015. Nothing brings a group together like trying to explain something without using the word in front of you. In Codenames, players are separated into two teams and one person on each team is given the role of spymaster. The spymaster’s job is to communicate their team’s list of codenames using only a single word to their team before the other team does the same.

Not convinced yet? This game was the number one checkout from the PAXAus Tabletop Library this year and never seems to stay on the shelves, even ours, for long so if you see it, I suggest snapping it up before someone else does.

Ticket To Ride

Now this is the game for people who don’t know that they love board games. Ticket to Ride is an easy take on the more strategic board games out there. Players compete to build the train routes marked on their tickets by collecting and spending cards of specific colours. Some routes can only be established by one player at a time and there’s extra points awarded for the player with the longest route at the end of the game.

There’s not a lot of down time to Ticket to Ride and it’s quick and easy to pick up the rules. I bought this for my little sisters (both age 11 at the time) and now my dad tells me it comes out way too often :)