foreword

i really didn’t expect to play board games as much as i do in my ripe old college age, but it’s something that this dork unironically looks forward to if my friends couldn’t come up with a better idea for what to do on a friday night. sometimes, if we’re feeling extra special, we’ll even drive to the mcdonalds 10 minutes away to get some food to eat WHILE we play the board game. can you believe just how creative some people get when they’re in a college located in the middle of nowhere?*

*this sentence does not constitute my professional view on any institution, past or present (please don’t sue me)

but anyway, as depressing as it can be to have board games as one of the few common interests in a friend group lest we end up staying indoors on a friday night crying ourselves to sleep, it can surprisingly be very fun to play these. playing board games with friends invite a friendly and competitive spirit, plenty of shit-talking, and an unending source of schadenfreude from seeing those less skilled than you fail at strategy-based games. as mentioned before, it’s also nice to play over food, and considering that eating out is one of the few other hobbies that we have, well…

so it’s this kind of ritualistic source of competition where real feelings get hurt for real, the full human spirit being materialized into a primal shout at the universe’s cruelty after you roll a 7 in catan with too many cards. all the while, we are sitting in the student center getting stared at, or better yet there’s no one sitting around us anymore because we are rowdy weirdos who won’t stop disturbing the peace. i’ll explain my take on each board game in one sentence so that i don’t bore everyone with my nerdiness.

the rankings

s tier

• codenames: amazingly portable, producer of human ingenuity, strangely inviting of some of the worst spymaster minds on the planet, nevertheless hilarious.
• catan: one of those games were you paranoiacally have to take every diceroll, every trade, every road placed as a conspiracy against you; i can see why churchill drank so much (we play catan exclusively with food) during ww2 after playing this game – it’s stressful.
• junglespeed: a really underrated gem that invites a good balance between mind and body, and between the broken nails and strained vocal chords i’ve incurred while playing, this game is so fun that we keep playing down to the last person to run out of cards.

a tier

• card games: there’s essentially an unlimited number of games you can play, but it does take some time to get used to the rules of new games, and at that to find a game worth playing; honorable mentions for keeping us entertained all of spring 2026 semester include hearts and kemps.
• uno: can never go wrong but it’s pretty simplistic, also benefits from being very portable and requiring a good amount of bluffing to play strategically.
• ticket to ride: not my personal favorite because i suck at it, but it’s admittedly really fun to play over food and music, and as long as my friends are happy to play it then i’m happy to join them.
• secret hitler: i’ve played this game seriously like once or twice, and it’s actually hilarious how bad i am at reading people socially.
• dominion: has a bit of a learning curve but boasts a very customizable card deck, meaning that each game is going to feel pretty fresh because the optimal strategy always changes; it is very rage-inducing, however (or maybe i’m just a baby).

b tier

• monopoly: it’s actually a very good game save for the fact that you’re never going to have enough time to play it all the way through AND people don’t really know how to play the barter system well, so it ends up being one of those games that you’re kind of hyped to play initially but becomes stale very quickly.
• tic tac toe: love it for its portability; this is best played if both players place down their X’s and O’s extremely fast, otherwise it just becomes another game where the optimal strategy is to draw, draw, draw, draw, draw.
• jenga: a certain someone argued that this doesn’t constitute a board game, but to that i say that this is a game that i exclusively play when i’m bored (please laugh don’t hurt my feelings).
• cards against humanity: i feel like it’s too stuck on overly edgy millennial humor that can’t keep up with the ever-changing trends of today’s youth, so besides the fact that you’ll get an actually funny sentence every few rounds or so, it can be quite obnoxious to go through very lame answers that induce nothing but a straight face emoji.
• dominoes: i grew up with these because i played it with my grandma, but i’m mostly putting it in B tier because i’m hispanic and it’s like cultural code that i don’t disrespect this game.
• guess who?: another game that i played a lot with my grandma, and hence i associate it with good memories despite the fact that i don’t really play it that much anymore.

c tier

• dos: i played this like once at a library when i was in middle school, but i don’t remember much about it besides the fact that it’s a more complicated version of uno, a game that i think benefits most from its simplicity.
• pokemon: i’m lowkey just a hater…i never really enjoyed the TCG itself because i never really collected good cards :-(
• twister: this was fun when i was younger, but i feel like my 20s self would hurt a muscle trying to play this…a strange part of me kind of wants to try it out with my friends now to see just how funny it can be.
• game of life: another game that i played once in middle school, and honestly the only memory i have of it was that i fell asleep in the middle of playing it.
• battleship: why are you even playing this anymore…it’s a classic for sure, but i can’t say that it’s too enjoyable besides the novelty of playing it once in a while.

d tier

• chess: i don’t get why the obsession over this game resurfaced in our generation, but i’m glad that people are stimulating their minds if nothing else.
• bingo: d tier might be a bit generous since this game is a literal lottery, but playing it usually involves some kind of prize winning which is why it holds decent memories.
• checkers: chess’ annoying cousin.
• operation: i’m not sure why i included this besides the fact that i once played it at a friend’s house when i was like 8 years old…
• connect 4: this game is WAY too hard for me i don’t know why, and i know that the cs people (my friend who took this class at least) at my college had to create some kind of machine learning algorithm to this game, so it’s safe to say that connect 4 will NOT be played anytime soon.
• snakes and ladders: it’s a classic but i’m frankly too old to be playing this.
• hungry hungry hippos: another kids’ classic that i have cool memories of but in retrospect don’t understand how i could ever find this fun.

f tier

• scrabble: i don’t know why, but this game always invites some of the most dedicated players i’ve ever seen in my life to the point that it’s not that great for a casual board game night.
• risk: i know this game isn’t bad, and it’s actually one of the favorites in my friend groups, but that being said i just cannot for the life of me figure out how to play strategically when the game mechanics always seem to invite a lot of bs plays that leave me in a state of shock and confusion (one of the few games that i’ve ragequit in the middle of!)

Last modified on 2026-08-08