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These are the games that we feel are the best options in this category, and that we have in our own collections to fill this niche.

Summary: Race to build your wonder and collect points by selecting either of the cards next to you, or testing you luck with a blind draw from the deck.

You Might Like If… you enjoy simple games that have some nice strategic decisions and want a game that covers a really wide player count, is fun across the spectrum of non-gamer to heavy gamer, and plays in half hour.

Summary: Fit shapes of various terrains into your map, doing your best to fill in space efficiently while also meeting the scoring conditions for that game.

You Might Like If… you enjoy spatial puzzles (think Tetris) and want a game that plays great across a broad range of players with a nice amount of variety from game to game with randomized objectives.

Summary: Use clever word clues to help your team guess the secret code without giving up too much information to the opposing team, all while trying intercept the opposing team’s code.

You Might Like If… you enjoy games with word clues and want something that has more depth and lots of teamwork to try to decipher various word clues. Plays especially well with six players as each team will alway have two guessers that can discuss together in addition to the current clue-giver.

Summary: Build the greatest fantasy kingdom by constructing the best hand of seven cards.

You Might Like If… you enjoy games with card combos and interactions like Magic: The Gathering or Dominion, and are looking for a quick and easy-to-teach game that works well across a wide range of player counts.

While these games missed the cut for our top recommendations in this category, we still think they would be great options for a lot of people.

Summary: Strategically place numbers and activate abilities across eight unique boards in this flip-and-write game that has you traveling from earth to the moon.

You Might Like If… you enjoy working on your own puzzle and trying to plan ahead and want a game that has a variety of maps with different twists to keep the game fresh. Also includes a campaign mode if you can consistently gather the same group.

Summary: Use clever deduction and guesswork to be the last player in each round in this Lovecraftian variant of the popular game Love Letter.

You Might Like If… you enjoyed Love Letter but are looking for a little bit more depth. Some ambiguities in the rulebook make this hard to fully recommend, but it has replaced Love Letter in our groups and is a perfect game for closing out a game night with some light tactics and laughter.

Summary: Battle to the death as giant monsters with Yahtzee-like dice rolling and the acquisition of special ability cards.

You Might Like If… you enjoy dice rolling and games with some conflict and want an easy-to-teach option that plays quickly and across a wide range of player counts.

These are games that we have not had the chance to try ourselves, but that we believe could be a good fit based on our research.

Summary: Bet, buy horses, and influence jockeys for cash in an exciting 1930's era horse race.

You Might Like If… you enjoy betting games and want a roll-and-write style game that plays well over a wide range of player counts.

Summary: Bet on a horse race as it is in progress in this chaotic real-time game.

You Might Like If… you enjoy betting and high-energy games and want a unique game that can play well up to some really high player counts.