Guide
How to Choose a Board Game Gift
Four questions, in this order. Each one eliminates more wrong answers than the last, and none of them requires you to know anything about board games.
By Scooter M. · Published · Last updated
How this page is funded: the buy links below are affiliate links. If you buy through one, we earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It does not change the order of the picks or what we say about them. Full disclosure.
Games we claim to have play-tested: 0. Every gift guide in this category implies a shelf of played games behind it. We do not have one, and we would rather say so. What we do instead is on this page: the publisher’s own player count, playing time and age band for every pick, cited to the publisher; a live price rather than a remembered one; and a plain answer on who should skip each game.
The short answer
Answer four questions in this order: how many people usually play, how long they will actually sit, the age of the youngest player, and whether anybody takes losing badly. The first question eliminates most of the market. The fourth decides between competitive and cooperative games.
Almost all board game gift advice starts from genre - “does he like strategy?” - and that is the wrong end. Genre is a preference. Player count, length and age are constraints, and a game that violates a constraint does not get played regardless of how well it matches a preference.
So work through the constraints first. This is the same order the whole site is organized in, and it takes about two minutes.
Question 1: how many people, usually?
This eliminates more of the market than everything else combined, because publisher player counts are hard limits rather than suggestions. CATAN states 3-4 players, so a couple genuinely cannot play it. Codenames states 4-8+, so three people cannot. Jaipur states 2, and no more.
The mistake to avoid is buying for the group they might have rather than the group they do have. If it is usually two people, buy a two-player game even if a party game looks like more fun.
| Usual number of people | Go to |
|---|---|
| Two | Board games for 2 players |
| Three | Board games for 3 players |
| Four | Board games for 4 players |
| Five or six | Board games for 6 players |
| Eight or more | Board games for large groups |
Question 2: how long will they actually sit?
Not how long they would like to. A household with young children has about thirty minutes. A group of friends who have set an evening aside has ninety. Buying past the real number is the second most common way this gift fails.
Every publisher states a playing time and we print it on every page here. Treat 30 minutes as the safe default and only go above it if you know there is an evening available.
Question 3: how old is the youngest player?
Publisher age ratings on board games are unusually honest - they reflect what a child can hold in their head rather than a safety warning. Our age guide lists every game we cover by the publisher’s stated floor, which runs from 4 to 17.
Two that catch people out: The Chameleon is rated 14+ by Big Potato despite looking family-friendly, and Monikers is rated 17 and up by CMYK.
Question 4: does anybody take losing badly?
This is the question nobody asks and it decides more gift outcomes than genre ever will. If the answer is yes - and in families it very often is - buy a cooperative game, where everybody plays on the same side against the board.
Pandemic (Z-Man: 2-4 players, 8+, 45 minutes), Forbidden Island (Gamewright: 2-4, 10+, 30 minutes) and Just One (Repos: 3-7, 8+, 20 minutes) are the three we recommend most for this.
What to do with the answers
You now have four constraints, and on this site they map directly onto four sections: by group size, by occasion, by recipient and by budget. Start with whichever constraint is tightest - usually the number of people - and cross-check against the others.
If two or three games survive all four questions, pick the shortest one. Short games get played twice on the first night, and the second play is where somebody decides they like board games.
What we would buy for this
Chosen from the same registry as our roundups, on the publisher's own figures and a live price.
Codenames
Czech Games Edition · The gift you give when you know almost nothing about the person
The single safest board game gift there is. Two teams, a grid of words, and one person giving one-word clues. It explains in about a minute, it works at four people or ten, and nobody has to read a rulebook to enjoy it.
#ad We do not hold a current price for this product, so we do not show one. How we make money.
What it actually is
A word game. The room splits into two teams; one person on each team can see which words belong to their side and gives a single-word clue to point their teammates at them.
What the publisher states
| Figure | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Players | 4-8+ | Czech Games Edition, published game page |
| Age | 10+ | Czech Games Edition, published game page |
| Length | 15 min | Czech Games Edition, published game page |
Read from the publisher’s own page. Where a publisher does not state a figure, there is no row for it here.
What is good about it
- Teaches faster than almost anything else on this site - the core rule is one sentence
- Scales past its printed maximum, because extra people simply join a team
- Everyone talks, including the people who are losing
What is not
- The two clue-givers do most of the thinking; quiet guessers can drift
- Wants an even-ish split into two teams, so it is awkward at exactly three
- Word games do not suit everybody, and you cannot always tell in advance
Who should skip it
Skip it for a group of two or three - it wants teams. Skip it for someone who dislikes word games, or who is playing in a second language.
How it scored as a gift
- Easy to explain9.8
- Works for non-gamers9.7
- Group size range9.4
- Repeat plays9.2
- Feels like a gift8.8
Gift fit 9.6 / 10. That is our editorial judgment of how safe and well-aimed this is as a present, read off the published specifications - not a verdict on how good the game is, and not a test result. It is deliberately not marked up as a rating in this page’s structured data. How we pick.
Ticket to Ride
Days of Wonder · A household that owns no board games at all
The default answer to 'we want a proper board game and nobody here plays board games'. You collect colored cards and use them to claim railway routes across a map of the United States. That is the whole idea, and it is enough.
#ad We do not hold a current price for this product, so we do not show one. How we make money.
What it actually is
A route-building game. You gather sets of matching cards and spend them to place little plastic trains along the lines between cities.
What the publisher states
| Figure | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Players | 2-5 | Days of Wonder, published game page |
| Age | 8+ | Days of Wonder, published game page |
| Playing time | 30-60 min | Days of Wonder, published game page |
Read from the publisher’s own page. Where a publisher does not state a figure, there is no row for it here.
What is good about it
- One of the shortest explanations of any full-size board game: collect cards, claim routes
- Two to five players from one box, and it is decent at every count in that range
- The map and the trains do a lot of the work of making it feel like an occasion
What is not
- Someone can take the route you needed, and new players take that badly
- At the 60-minute end it outstays its welcome with restless players
- The plastic trains are small enough to lose under a sofa
Who should skip it
Skip it for a group of six or more - the box stops at five - and skip it for someone who wants a fifteen-minute game.
How it scored as a gift
- Easy to explain9.0
- Works for non-gamers9.6
- Group size range8.6
- Repeat plays9.0
- Feels like a gift9.8
Gift fit 9.5 / 10. That is our editorial judgment of how safe and well-aimed this is as a present, read off the published specifications - not a verdict on how good the game is, and not a test result. It is deliberately not marked up as a rating in this page’s structured data. How we pick.
Carcassonne
Z-Man Games · A family with a genuinely mixed age range
You draw a tile, you put it down so the roads and fields line up, and sometimes you put a little wooden person on it. Z-Man's stated age floor is 7, the lowest of any full board game here, and it plays two to five.
#ad We do not hold a current price for this product, so we do not show one. How we make money.
What it actually is
A tile-laying game. The board is built as you play, one square tile at a time, and you claim the roads, cities and fields you help complete.
What the publisher states
| Figure | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Players | 2-5 | Z-Man Games, published product page |
| Age | 7+ | Z-Man Games, published product page |
| Playing time | 30-45 min | Z-Man Games, published product page |
Read from the publisher’s own page. Where a publisher does not state a figure, there is no row for it here.
What is good about it
- An age floor of 7 with no reading required at all
- Genuinely playable at two, which most family games are not
- No two games start the same, because the board is different every time
What is not
- Field scoring at the end confuses almost everybody the first time
- A run of unhelpful tiles feels like bad luck rather than a decision
- The little wooden figures are exactly the size a toddler will eat
Who should skip it
Skip it for a group of six or more, and skip it for anyone who wants the scoring to be obvious - the farms rule is the one everybody argues about.
How it scored as a gift
- Easy to explain8.6
- Works for non-gamers9.0
- Group size range8.6
- Repeat plays9.2
- Feels like a gift8.8
Gift fit 8.8 / 10. That is our editorial judgment of how safe and well-aimed this is as a present, read off the published specifications - not a verdict on how good the game is, and not a test result. It is deliberately not marked up as a rating in this page’s structured data. How we pick.
Jaipur
Space Cowboys · Two people who want something quick and repeatable
Two traders, a market of goods cards, and a decision every turn about whether to sell now or hold for more. Thirty minutes by the publisher's clock and about ninety seconds to explain.
#ad We do not hold a current price for this product, so we do not show one. How we make money.
What it actually is
A two-player card game about buying and selling goods. Selling more of the same thing at once pays better, but the price of everything drops as it is sold.
What the publisher states
| Figure | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Players | 2 | Space Cowboys, published game page |
| Age | 10+ | Space Cowboys, published game page |
| Length | 30 min | Space Cowboys, published game page |
Read from the publisher’s own page. Where a publisher does not state a figure, there is no row for it here.
What is good about it
- One of the easiest good two-player games to teach - sell or take, that is the turn
- Best of three rounds, so a session has a natural shape
- Small box, so it works as a travel game as well as a home one
What is not
- Two players only
- The camel rule confuses people exactly once, and then never again
- Card quality is the ordinary sort, not the luxury sort
Who should skip it
Skip it for a group. Jaipur has no variant above two players and nothing about it stretches.
How it scored as a gift
- Easy to explain9.4
- Works for non-gamers9.2
- Group size range4.0
- Repeat plays9.2
- Feels like a gift8.2
Gift fit 9.0 / 10. That is our editorial judgment of how safe and well-aimed this is as a present, read off the published specifications - not a verdict on how good the game is, and not a test result. It is deliberately not marked up as a rating in this page’s structured data. How we pick.
How these were picked
We have not played these games and we do not pretend to have. What we did was read each publisher’s own page, take their stated player count, playing time and age band, check that every pick genuinely fits the constraint in this page’s title, confirm it is still being sold, and pull a live price rather than a remembered one. Every figure here names the publisher it came from, so you can check it yourself in about a minute.
How we pick sets out the full method, including what would change a ranking.
Questions people ask
+−How do I pick a board game for someone else?
Answer four questions in order: how many people usually play, how long they will actually sit, how old the youngest player is, and whether anybody takes losing badly. Constraints first, taste second - a game that breaks a constraint does not get played whatever the recipient likes.
+−What is the most important thing to check before buying a board game?
The publisher’s stated player count. It is a hard limit, not a suggestion: CATAN states 3-4 players, so a couple cannot play it, and Codenames states 4-8+, so three people cannot. This one number eliminates most wrong answers.
+−Should I buy the game they asked for or something better?
The one they asked for. A requested game will be played; a better game they did not ask for often is not. The only exception is when the request cannot work - somebody asking for CATAN who only ever has one other person to play with.
+−How do I choose between two games that both fit?
Take the shorter one. A short game gets played twice on the first night, and the second play is where a new player decides whether they enjoy board games at all.