Not every board game has to be an epic, four-hour battle of strategic planning. Plenty of the best rainy-daytabletop gameshave the most simple and basic premise, with the family classicConnect Fourbeing one example. It’s a game that virtually anyone of any age can learn and understand, and, when it comes to party night, less complex is better.
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There are plenty of other games that work just as well in the same setting as Connect Four, which means friends, family, game night, or indoor activity time. It’s classified as a connection game, which means players have to make roads, lines, or other types of “connections” between their pieces. Add a deck of playing cards, a stray set of dice, and a few letter tiles and the result is a game that’s a great alternative to Connect Four.
7Sequence
The original name of this game was “Sequence Five” since the aim of the game is to get two lines of five.Sequenceis a game that appears often in places like hotels and resorts where the space and players are available, but as few as two people can also play. It uses a few basic colors and adds the fun of a deck of playing cards in place of a grid.
Two teams of four is another combination, which makes it possible to tweak the gameplay for round-robins or tournament play. That’s another advantage that can help to make events like game night a lot more interesting.
6Boggle
Imagine those colored disks became letters instead, and the players had to put them together in a certain order to make words. The real beautyof this game is its versatility, which means any number of players, time limits, teams, tournaments, themed games, or just using the word cubes without the board. The letters have to be connected in certain ways in order for players to form words with them.
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Bogglemight be one of the oldest games like Connect Four. It’s been a standard fixture on most family shelves for years now, and, since it’s also handy for younger folks learning how to read and spell, a lot of classrooms have it too.
5Guess Who!
Speaking of classrooms, here’s another one that second-language teachers know and love, and it’s equally fun for all age groups. It’s not a connection game, but, similar to Connect Four, it uses a tabletop accessory, only this time it’s one with flip-tiles rather than tokens.
Guessing games are always fun with groups, which is whythese kinds of games are often designedfor several players, andGuess Who!is also great for round-robin or timed games. The strategy involved is more complex than it seems, with dedicated players crafting specific questions to see how few questions it takes to win.
4Ticket To Ride
Ticket to Ridedoesn’t have the tokens ofConnect Four, but it uses colors and connections as part of the gameplay. Each player takes on a certain character, which is assigned a color, and the goal is to build the railroad connecting the locations in their playing cards.
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There’s an electronic version ofTicket to Ridethese days, along with a card-only version that travels better and includes localized versions of real places. This is not only a connection game that uses certain colors, but also a German tile game that’s very much in the spirit ofCatan.
3Tripoli
If there’s aSequencegame on the shelf, there’s likely aTripoliboard right next to it. They might even share the same set of colorful tokens and playing card sets. This game is also known asRummoliand was inspired by a medieval German game calledPoch.
Tripolimixeselements from several different games, with most of the references being to winning Poker hands. One round involves each player laying cards in sequence according to their suits. The tokens in this game are used as currency to buy new cards or as bets during the poker round.
2Azul
Remember those kids that liked to use the Connect Four board just for fun and art, and didn’t even care to play the game? Those kids grew up and designedAzul.The game is based on the stunning artwork of the azulejo: the blue ceramic tiles that are found in Spanish and Portuguese art.
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Each tile is assigned a different score in relation to where it’s placed on its own personal player board. The game ends when one player finishes their own tiled board, but, much likea game of quidditch in theHarry Potteruniverse, the winner is determined by points.
1Hues And Cues
Hues and Cuesis primarily a guessing game, but it also uses vivid colors, deduction, and wordplay. Each player has to describe a color without using its name, but their cues can only be one or two words long.
Pull this game out for party night, since as many as ten people can play at the same time, and in that setting, it’s more like an animated game of Charades than a board game. There are 480 different shades on the board, so there’s a lot of room for both wild creativity and hilarious mistakes.
