5 Great Gateway Board Games for New Players 

"Oh some cool new board games?" "Wait I've played all of these" "WAIT A MINUTE! My friends Gateway Board Gamed me!"

Yes, the “mom standard” 😂 I relate to that well.

My Dad is absolutely obsessed with Splendor, but he can rarely even remember the name. Every other day, he'll come up to me and say "hey, let's play the jewel game again!"

“Yeah... I guess you could say I’m a gamer.”

I don't know if anyone else said this but you should also mention that some of the games you mentioned are language independent games. Since there are no words on the games they can be taught to just about anyone as long as the person can translate the rules verbally well enough. Like Splendor, Azul, and Dixit don't have words on their games so it makes it easier to play like for my parents who don't speak english but we can still play because they are language independent. So I agree these are some good games that are good for bringing players into the hobby even those that don't speak english.

TL;DR 1:35 Ticket to Ride 3:42 Splendor 5:34 Azul 8:50 Dixit 11:20 Codenames

I'm deep onto tabletop games, but there were a couple that I haven't played on here! There's so many games coming out all the time that it's easy to overlook seemingly common games. Thank you so much for making this!

One I would like to add is Love Letter. It’s easy to learn because you literally only have one or two cards at a time, and there’s no board. So it’s just you and each other player with their one card. It’s filled with strategy and I think more people should try it out!

As an addition, Coup is also pretty easy to teach people--especially considering it comes with a pair of cheat sheets per player--and as far as I can remember, is almost always a hit.

Codenames is the one I'd get if I absolutely had to narrow it down to one - it's extremely simple to explain and yet also has a surprising amount of depth and replayability to it.

Thanks for the rec for Codenames Duet. I love Ticket to Ride and Carcassonne, but my sister isn't as into strategy, so she tends to lose, and thus doesn't enjoy it (because losing sometimes is okay, but all the time is boring). We've found she's okay with strategy if it's co-op, though, like with Forbidden Island.

Heck yes! Splendor is amazing for new players. I taught my mom (who never understood boardgames) and even my 80+ years old grandmother. And they picked up on how to play pretty quick. If that does not speak volumes of its genius and easy to learn quality, nothing will.

So I introduced my family to Ticket to Ride on Thanksgiving and it was a hit. My parents invited me over the next night and played again! Now I'm looking to introduce another game, but don't want to pick something too complex to scare everyone off.

codename is probably the most played game by me and my friends, we are playing this game pretty much always when we see each other ;d

I think Splendor also has very satisfying tactile pieces. The chips are heavy plastic and it makes a big difference. I don't think the game would be nearly as much fun if the chips were just resource cards or little cardboard bits.

I have five children under 10 years old and this list has some amazing ideas. Thanks.

Funny story, I literally had used 4 of these 5 games to introduce my parents or friends to board games before i saw this video. Two bonus ones for anyone that might be interested. 1. Parks, it’s a nature board game with the simple objective of collecting resources on a trail and using that resource to visit parks. Really good illustrations and chill vibe, definitely for the out doors crowd. 2. Dungeon Mayhem, it’s made by DnD creators, very simple but well designed. I’ve introduced this game to countless numbers of people, my girlfriend even took it home to France and got almost all of her friends and family hooked on it.

one of my fav gateway games is Carcassone!

I actually got my friend into board games with Scythe. He plays a ton of strategy games on PC. But he hated board games because they were "slow and boring". But he saw it on my shelf one day and asked about it. Now he will play any board game these days even the simpler ones. He thought everything was like Monopoly or something like that.

My girl and I always get so much enjoyment out of Ticket to Ride. Both from the game itself, and the not knowingness if we're gonna be nice to each other....or be assholes and block the other's path >:D

My introduction to modern board gaming was with "The Resistance." A VERY simple game of players secretly voting for if a mission succeeds or not and trying to figure out which player is secretly voting for missions to fail. It's very similar to what later became "Secret Hitler" though far more simplistic. After that I dove into "Boss Monster."

I misread the title as “5 Great Gateway Drugs for New Players” and didnt question it

Great timing, was thinking of getting board game for my Mom for Mother's Day

Grimm Forest is #1 gateway board game. The perfect beginner balance of strategy, luck, and "gotcha" mechanics. Simple theme that everyone can relate to. I've hooked a lot of people onto games using Grimm Forest.

love the creative aspect in dixit and that it can make a difference how well you know each other in it's own kind of way

I've been extremely interested in playing DnD and other board/table top games. But I'm unsure of how I'd actually enjoy it. So, this is actually very informative and helpful in my situation. I appreciate it, ProZD. Good Shit. Also, Dixit seems like....CAH But not inappropriate, and with pictures instead.

The 'Spiel des Jahres' award means Game of the Year in german, the the number under it is obviously the year it won, just fyi

Went to a board games night at uni and played splendour for the first time, my strategy was simple, in almost all cases go for the 3 singles rather than the double as it's 50% more chips and generally speaking that will be more helpful than just tunneling a single path or whatever. I ended up winning. Then I played Catan and it was also my first time, and I built a few misplaced roads early on, and like 5 minutes later I realised I had no chance of winning, so I was just stuck there for another 20 minutes waiting for the inevitable end. Hence I do not like Catan. And all of you should care

I find it hilarious that you mention board games you can play with your mother, because I play board games with my mother and she LOVES Ticket to Ride and Splendor(Splendor Especially).

Codenames is absolutely phenomenal. Unlimited possibilities with essentially one game component. Great recommendation.

The game that got me into board games was sushi go. Love the aesthetic and isn't too complicated but definitely has strategy.

my secret to enjoying board games is to being enough of a nerd to be friends with the board game dudes

It doesn’t feel right that I know multiple people who own Ticket To Ride and never played it.

Hanabi, Jaipur, and Carcassone also good to get started with an eventual goal of luring people into the deep end with Agricola then they're going to be nice and hooked!

My sister got me into Dominion. Its a pretty easy game to learn the basics of but lets you really expand your strategy the more you learn it. And with the bonus card sets the game can grow with you.

Been looking for a video like this for ages! Thank you.

Any shop that sells Dixit likely also sells the little expansion boxes with extra cards, if you ever get bored of the basegame ones. The only problem I've ran into when playing Dixit with my family is that it takes kind of a while for everyone to take a good look at the cards before voting. I'd recommend playing with a little tray or something that can fit all the cards and spin easily, otherwise people are gonna be craning their neck to look at cards that are placed upside down from them.

I love how codenames can be really different with how well you know the people you play with. If i play with my brother and sister we can win the match in 1 or 2 turns with obscure references.

Only haven’t played dixit from the 5 mentioned. But definitely great pics. All of them are very easy to explain to friends who’ve never played before as well which is always great.

among the games you recommended, i really liked splendor and dixit. we played those games in a board game bar, but my parents love dixit. my sister and i team up against my parents for obscure word associations for pictures based on the things we're interested in (various tv shows and games, mostly). my parents weren't into splendor, though. i'm pretty sure i'm the only one in my family who loved splendor. we also played ticket to ride but we all got bored playing it after one round. among the games you recommended, i want to try azul now

You know what’s funny been playing Board Games everything from A Feast for Odin to Vital Lacerda’s awesome Heavy Euro’s…owning over 500 games…I still absolutely love and cannot get enough of Azul, Ticket To Ride, Splendor,and Carcassone. Anytime you might get a little board you can just get an expansion and it has new life. Great “gateway” games are actually just really great games.

just want to say i freaking love the board game vids. I dont play the games but you can see you really care about these!

Definitely agree with codenames. We played codenames pictures with my parents on Easter and we had so much fun. Ticket to Ride is interesting to me because I agree it's an easy and fun game, but every game we've played has felt so stressful. We got ticket to ride Pennsylvania and only played one game before we quit the series because it was too stressful lol

I love this video, and I appreciate it. I have a family who love Love Letter, Rummy, Codenames, Next Station London. They bounced off Pandemic, Cockroach Poker, Skull hard. They've warmed a little to Trapwords. They tend to also like trivia games. So next on my list is, of course, Herbaceous, TTR Europe (I'm told the additions smooth out some of the mean blocking) and Pax Pamir 2e :P

The New York version is especially good to pick and play and teach people with. Since it's short, so you can go through a whole game and scoring really fast, and the person learning can jump and try again once they've seen the game in action.

I've been debating on getting Azul even though I hadn't played it, definitely will now, thank you!

I can't recomend Splendor enough, it's super simple to learn but has a lot of strategy! My recomendation: Sheriff of Notingham. A simple to learn bluffing game with a lot of hidden strategies. It's great because it keeps everyone playing all the time, there's almost no down time!

I am a massive board game geek, I’m studying game design in college currently and I really appreciated this video because I wanted to find some games my whole family would enjoy.

This was amazing. I love board games and I wish I had time (and friends) to always play them with people.

Ticket to Ride has the incredible distinction for me of being the board game I was able to teach my dad in just one session. My dad doesn't play board games, really, and he doesn't pay attention, and he's not terribly patient for or inclined to anything he isn't used to, but the game engaged him plenty (he loves trains), and he figured out not only the mechanics, but some even some of the strategy by the end of one game, and was willing to play it again a couple days later. I cannot agree more with its inclusion on this list.

If my German serves me right, that symbol says "Game of the Year" (or something like that)

Recently found out you had a youtube channel after watching Anime crimes division. I really enjoyed that series and i really enjoyed this video, great to be apart of this channel.😀

Fun list--We own all of these...if you want to step up from the intro levels I'd say Space Base over Splendor, Sagrada over Azul, Obscurio over Dixit, Codenames Pictures if you like Codenames, and Blood Rage over Ticket to Ride :) What's a gateway to gaming list without King of Tokyo?

I hope I inspired this video :) Love to see vids like this. I can't argue with any of your choices, even though TTR gives me the rage like few other games. I can play diplomacy or game of thrones with the zen of a buddist monk on a mountain. But TTR turns me into a frothing madman. Do more of these sorts of vids. Quality stuff

Fantastic board game video. The shorts are great, but seeing the board game videos really makes me smile because you’re growing the hobby! Thank you!

2:57 ah yes, the famous non-European country, Germany

Dude, you cursing like that early in the video was so disarming and hilarious that my fiancé and I both burst out laughing! Your channel is amazing and all of your opinions are very well executed!

Thank you for making videos like these! I've only played the super mainstream childhood board games, but got interested after hearing good things about Azul. I really appreciate having some nice beginner's options, along with your other videos recommending 2 people games since it's just me and my sister living together.

I think the beauty of azul as a gateway game is that players can make as complex as they want it to be. There's a huge complexity ceiling of how they want to score and make it as easy or hard as they want it to be. Also there's some serious cutthroatness to it if you want it to be.

I've brought Codenames to more than one social function and offered it as a minor distraction, like "Hey we should try playing a round or two of this game, I think you guys may like it". 100% of the time it completely overtakes the night, and no one wants to do anything but play more Codenames. After a couple games it's just "One more round, but this time I want to be the codemaster," or "One more round, but this time let's scramble the teams," or my personal favorite, "Have you been codemaster for me yet? We should do one more round." One time I forgot to bring the game, so i remade the game pieces and cards out of sticky notes and colored markers in about 20 minutes. There were other board games that i brought that the other people specifically requested that they wanted me to bring, and we didn't even open them. We just played Codenames for hours and hours. I showed the online version to some discord friends one night and we all brought our non-gamer partners to play with us. The next morning my girlfriend (who does not like board games) sheepishly asked me "Can we do another Codenames night soon?" I checked discord and, sure enough, every one of our partners had individually asked each of us if we could play more Codenames together again. I've never found a game to instantly be so addictive to so many people. It's... kind of scary.

You forgot to mention the best one: Love letter. I have the Lovecraft version, (lovecraft letter) and that deck has easily seen almost a thousand rounds of play, if not more. It's cheap, easy to learn and has almost no extra components besides a few tokens which, if lost, is easily replaceable or find a substitute for. It's what got me hooked on modern board games, as I used to play it with my friend after school.

i spent the longest game of splendor (almost two hours!) trying to teach it to my grandmother. i can’t even tell you how many times we had to explain that cards are permanent resources.

Played Ticket to Ride a lot over the years, but never played Splendor or Azul. I absolutely want Azul, though - it looks gorgeous! Own the other two and I agree with your assessments - I always bring those when going to relatively casual group.

I love a majority of the games on this list. I'm always looking for something that is easy to teach so that anyone can play it, it's fun, and it doesn't always feel the same every time. A very underrated game that I would suggest is Coup - the first time I played it was with my family and we played it for 6 hours straight.

The neat thing about Ticket To Ride is that you really don't know who's going to win until the very end. That's why I like it so much, you won't have a situation where you know 5 minutes in that you're going to lose and just have to slog the rest of the game. A player who was lagging behind in points the whole game can reveal a miracle combo of completed routes at the end and suddenly shoot way ahead of everyone. :)

what is the meanest games of all time for ppl who hate each other

Trying to start a board game night with my friends who don't play them very often, this is perfect. Thank you!

Dixit is perfect for inside jokes. If you have a group where everyone understands internet memery it is absolutely hilarious. Pick and play with the people you giggle with the most about the same stupid shit.

I have played many many many boardgames as a kid because my dad and I was staying with grandma who had a sister who brought back lots of boardgames from Germany during her stay due to military. Super fun tbh.

This is a great, great list. I have one I'd like to add for anyone interested; Tokaido. It's a beautiful, beautiful board game with gorgeous materials and art. It's basically about having the best trip through Japan possible. It's extremely easy to learn, all you do is move and collect sets of cards. It's only semi-competitive, making for a pretty relaxing, chill game. I love Tokaido.

Betrayal at the House On The Hill was the first game (outside of the ones every kid plays like Monopoly, Life, Trouble, etc) that I played and still my favorite.

Ticket to Ride was always hard for me to enjoy because it feels like my turn has little to no bearing on the turns of others. Feels like playing a game side-by-side, rather than playing together.

there is NO crueler fate on this earth than loving board games and having no one to play them with. god rest my soul

Yay! I've been waiting for this type of video ever since I saw your one that included Forbidden Island :)

hey SungWon would you ever consider (or have you already done this) making a video where you and your friends just play a board game? when you said dixit can be really funny with the right group of friends, I got curious and it would be fun to see how you play it (partly because i don't have enough friends lol). but also because I love watching people playing board games but I don't often see videos of that except for more complicated games or longer D&D videos.

Great list. A few others I've pulled out with brand new board gamers are Sushi Go Party, Sagrada and Forbidden Island (for a co-op option).

I got Splendour for my parents on their anniversary. They've been OBSESSED with it since. Great list Sungwon

Yep, love me some Splendor and Century Spice Road. Not Alone is a little more complicated, but it's pretty cool, and doesn't have a ton of rules.

Totally agree about splendor! It was an absolute hit with my in-laws, so much so that after playing it with them for a couple of years we got them their own copy! Another one that wasn't mentioned but was a real hoot with both my family and my in-laws is "Sheriff of Nottingham" - easy to learn, is a lot of fun, and can be very funny!

Splendor is really great, actually. Was glad to see it get some attention on your channel. Also like Dixit, and Codenames is decent. Really good picks, here.

I'm glad Ticket to Ride received a nod. I think it is a great game, and I love how incredibly easy it is to understand and play. Honestly, playing it changed the types of games I buy. I used to only play extremely convoluted, obtuse board games. I still love those types of games. However, every time I would play with people there would be a sold half hour of setup, then the next half hour would be confusion as you desperately try to teach new players the game. An hour in, you are still consulting the rule book (constantly). The games themselves are great, but they are also nightmares to play half of the time.

for some reason this board game made me think of one called mantis falls, which is extremely complicated to learn but very fun, its basically all the players are witnesses to a murder they weren't supposed to see and they are on the run trying to make it to the next town and escape the mob. I like it because there are several occasions where players can screw others over to survive and if you get unlucky enough you NEED to or else you won't make it for one reason or another. 10/10

I also was looking for games that meet the "mom" test.

I introduced Splendor to my family about six months ago, and they're fanatical about it. Since I started logging our games a month ago, we've played over 50 games, and from there I've estimated we've probably played around 3-4 hundred since I bought it.

Gizmos is a great alternative to Splendor. Very similar game and very fun. Every time I introduce someone new to board games, my go to game is The Quest for El Dorado. Simple to teach and it has deck building which is one of my favorites if not my favorite mechanic.

My 5 Gateway Games are Tsuro Hanabi D&D: Rock, Paper, Wizards The Resistance OR Secret Hitler Labyrinth

I know you mentioned Century Spice Road. I think it is a great intro board game, and the set collecting reminded me of Splendor and sorta replaced it for me. I was able to teach it to my wife who isn't really into it, and she seemed to like it better than Splendor when I taught that to her. I also really like Onitama for beginners. Similar to Chess in that pieces have unique movement, but the movement is tied to cards and each game is very different. And when you use a card, your opponent will get it. So it isn't lopsided. Similarly I taught it to my wife, and she liked it. I still need to play Azul, though I got it during some Target B2G1 free sale lol

My dad is really in to board games and I have played all of these. If anyone is looking into codenames there is a marvel and Disney one I think there's more than that but I like the marvel one alot.

I will check out Azul, seems fun. If you haven't yet tried Imoteph, I recommend! It is first complicated, but once you play it, it's quite simple. Tactic and fun design.

My parents are maybe a bit more open minded than yours, but they absolutely adore Carcassonne. The only part of the rules that was difficult was the scoring, but that only took a few rounds. It's nice that at any given turn you usually only have to choose between like 3 or 4 logical moves.

Ticket to ride WAS my gateway game. It’s wild that I don’t play it much anymore and now am into some games that are way more complicated.

I recommend these three hobby board games for beginners! 1. Catan is a classic intro to indie/hobby board games. It's like Monopoly, but it doesn't suck! 2. For a hardcore, strategy/storytelling game, I recommend Arkham Horror. It's a cooperative game where you fight eldritch monsters, and the story can get progressively better or worse, depending on how well the players perform (or roll). 3. Spyfall is a simple game for up to 10 players. A spy is chosen randomly and secretly, and while everyone tries to identify the spy, the spy tries to blend in. Happy gaming!

You should try mixing Codenames and Codenames Pictures in a 5x5 grid, alternating words and pictures. It becomes the hardest and most fun (for an experienced group) version. Have to keep telling your brain to look at both words and pictures.

0:20 I love your counter irony call out!

Thanks for this video, I went out and got Azul based on your recommendation, because my mom is similar to yours when it comes to games. She loved it and so did everyone else.

The opening rebuttal killed me 😂

Hah, my friends started me off with "Betrayal in the House on the Hill" and "Call of Cthulu"

Thanks a lot, I’ve been looking for something to get my family into the hobby and those all look great, your selfish desire is much appreciated!

One game I like to get people to play because it's so simple is Can't Stop. Roll dice, make combinations, then either press your luck or play it safe.

Splendor was one of my gateway games. The other is going through all of these videos. Love them both