Board games: Expert's go-to list for holiday weekend fun

With several days of rain in the forecast and a long weekend ahead, board games might just be what your family needs to pass the time together. 

The days leading up to a long weekend are busy ones for Jason Schill, who co-owns with his brother Jim, J&J Cards and Collectibles in Waterloo, Ont. 

The Schills say they have 3,500 different games in stock. On a long weekend, foot traffic goes up by about 50 per cent, said Jason.

"We try to have all our games prepared and ready," said Schill. "People coming in for the long weekend like to have things to do as a family or they're having a get-together with friends."

Times have changed

When they first opened the store in 1991, it was was mostly trading cards and comics. Over the years, that's changed as board games have become more and more mainstream.

"Definitely it's the big push for families to get together and have some social time, get off the electronic devices. You can sit around the table and actually socialize as well as play a game," he said. 

CBC Kitchener-Waterloo asked Schill for his suggestions for beginners, existing board game fans and those who prefer collaboration to competition. 

Q&A: Suggested games 

The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

CBC K-W: For people whose experience of board games is mostly Monopoly, Trouble or a card game — what's something you would suggest as a good entry level family game?

Jason Schill: We have numerous games that we can recommend that are at a nice, entry level. One in particular is the 2017 Game of the Year Winner, Kingdomino. That one is a nice, easy two to four player game for ages eight and up that you can learn in a matter of 10 minutes — which is nice, so it's easy to explain, it's easy to pick up and play which we find really works well, it doesn't intimidate people who are fairly fresh into the whole board game aspect. 

It's a tile-laying game, they use the domino aspect in the sense that you are laying out tiles, but they're a cardboard tile and you're actually creating kind of a castle keep. So you're collecting different aspects of tiles and grouping them together to maximize points. 

It's something that all ages have a fairly balanced chance at winning, so it's not one of those games where a parent is going to really exceed over the children. It's an easy enough strategy that the children can also win.

Average game time: 15 to 20 minutes.

CBC K-W: For people who are a little more advanced, who maybe are bored of Settlers of Catan, what would you suggest for someone who is a little more comfortable in the board gaming sphere?

Schill: Azul is a pattern-collecting game. It won Game of the year in 2018. Again, you're collecting tiles and you're trying to place them in strategic order, in order to score the most points in each round. We find, definitely the more you pick and play a game you learn things along the way, you learn what not to do and different strategies that you'll approach the next time you play. 

It's a little bit more involved — certainly for people who have played Catan, they'll be able to pick up on that quite easily. Again, a really well balanced game that flows nicely. 

Average game time: 30 to 45 minutes.

CBC K-W: Co-operative games have really come a long way. Tell me about co-operative games and why they're evolving. 

Schill: Co-operative games have really emerged over the last several years. It's not for everyone; some people really like to have a winner at the end of it, but there is a group of people out there that really like the co-operative aspect and the challenge of working together to try and beat the game system itself. 

For us, Pandemic is probably our number one selling co-operative game. It's, again, a well-balance game for those who don't like that heavy competitive aspect of trying to beat out your opponents or make strategic moves that hinder your opponents. 

The ability to play a different role [or character skill] each time, and work together to have all these roles come together to win the game is definitely appealing aspect to a growing number of people. 

Average game time: 45 to 60 minutes. 

CBC K-W: Is there a game that you're playing right now that you really enjoy?

Schill: Right now I would say my go-to game if I'm having company over would be Codenames. It is one of those great games that you can play with anybody. It's good for a group of people, very social-oriented. So that's definitely — in our household — one that we pull out all the time. 

The way that Codenames works is, you branch into two teams. One person from each team is "running" the game, and you lay out a grid of word cards. The objective is the person that's running the game has to get their teammates to pick all the cards that correspond to their challenge card [which changes each game] but you're only allowed to give a single word clue. 

The strategy comes into play in trying to link multiple cards together. So a very interesting creative thinking game. It flows nice, it plays quickly and is great for all ages. 

Average game time: 15 minutes