Board game recommendations by Tibi

We're a small team of boardgame enthusiasts who compile lists for different occasions, age and interest groups. We regularly revisit our recommendations so that they're constantly up-to-date.

The Tibi team encompasses a wide spectrum of board game genres with decades of personal experience. We love to play all kinds of games — from simple, accessible games like Rhino Hero^*, all the way to weekend-devouring monstrosities like Twilight Imperium^*.

We base our recommendations on our experiences, combined with awards, customer reviews, as well as opinions from critics. No matter what you find in our top lists, there's no bad games.

Our most popular board game recommendation lists

How do I find the right game in these lists?

We try to create product categories that are targeted to specific customer groups. For example, if you have had good experiences with other games in a list, then the rest of the recommendations are likely to apply to taste. If you have had little experience with board games, or are buying the board game as a gift, it helps to know a few basic distinctions to make the decision easier:

Number of players

Most board games balance the game around an ideal number of players, often 3-4. Even though the rules often allow fewer or more players, the fun factor can suffer if, for example, you have to wait a long time for your turn.

So if you're looking for a game that's good to play alone, or one that's designed for two players, or games that are fun to play in large groups - our recommendations are based on the ideal number of players, not the number allowed alone.

Playing time

Classics among board games, such as Monopoly and Risk, often stretch very long and are therefore frustrating for players who had a bad start and are now impatiently waiting for the game to end.

In our lists, we prefer games that justify their long playing times and remain interesting for all involved until the end. But still, you don't always have time and desire to invest an hour or even more.

We therefore try to find a good mix of fast and slow games, so that there is something for everyone. However, we also have a selection of fast games and Games you can play in ten minutes.

Recommended age

There are a lot of games that young and old alike can enjoy especially together. At Tibi, we all have wonderful memories of shared board game nights with family, and continue that tradition with our own children.

But not every game can be played with the kids. In our experience, the age recommended by the board game publisher is a very reliable measure here. But to get you started, we have our own recommendations for Kids up to 6 and Children up to 10 years compiled.

Complexity

Last, but certainly no less important, is game complexity. This is a measure of many factors: how difficult are the rules, can the game be learned quickly, how time-consuming is the setup? We rate this level of difficulty from "easy" to "extreme".

Again, we try to make our recommendations diverse. We advise against categorically shying away from games that are complicated: for some gaming experiences, a certain level of rules complexity is simply necessary. A good example of this is cooperative games, where players try to win together "against the board game".

But if you've only recently dived into the world of board games, we recommend starting with rather simple games. A good place to start is with our recommendations of short games.

Still not the right board, card or dice game?

Then we would be happy to make recommendations that fit you! Just send us a message and let us know what you would like to see. You can find our e-mail address here