Games For Bored New Parents

Irving&Link

Hey all. Looking to see if anyone out here has some recommendations for some good games for new parents to play to pass the time. I'm a gamer but my wife isn't so much. She has played a little magic and didn't hate it, and some ticket to ride and had a decent amount of fun. I haven't ever really kept up with the table top scene so I'm not sure what is out there for us. I'm looking for so something that involves some kind of strategy element but isn't to insanely involved so we don't need days and days to finish s game. Could be card based, or a board game. Just looking for something other than scrabble. Thanks for any help!

Hedgethorn

You'll likely get more recommendations if you post in the Board Games thread, but some entry-level games that my wife and I enjoy a great deal:

• 7 Wonders Duel - a card-drafting and tableau-building game which is like a miniature version of Civilization. 2-players only, 30 minutes.
• Pandemic - a cooperative game in which you play a team of CDC agents trying to cure four deadly diseases ravaging the globe. 1-4 players, 60-90 minutes.
• Dominion - the first "deck-building" game, where you start with a small deck of weak cards and gain stronger and stronger cards into your deck each turn. 2-4 players, 30 minutes.
• Suburbia - basically SimCity the board game. Add residential/commercial/industrial tiles to your city each turn to gain economy and population. 2-4 players, 2 hours.

There are many, many others I could recommend, but any of these would be a good place to start for a couple largely new to board games. If your wife liked Ticket to Ride, the Nordic Countries edition or the India/Switzerland editions are the best for 2-players. (Note that the India/Switzerland edition only has a board and cards; you need to purchase one of the other editions to get the trains.)

Irving&Link

Awesome thanks I will post this there as well. Thanks much for the recommendations!

Captain Carrot

I thought new parents filled their time with waking up every two hours to feed/change/rock the baby.

Daemonis

Patchwork is a quite good game for two players.

discrider

Captain Carrot wrote: »

I thought new parents filled their time with waking up every two hours to feed/change/rock the baby.

So the game needs to be turn-based and whoever is awake takes a turn.

Super99Mont

I have no idea of it.

Mojo_Jojo

Captain Carrot wrote: »

I thought new parents filled their time with waking up every two hours to feed/change/rock the baby.

In the pre-grabbing phase you can get quite of gaming in. It just means that any given game will take twice its play length as you need to pace around jiggling / feed / change / etc the baby. We got in quite a few two player games of Trickerion and the like.

Now at nine months that is basically off the table until the baby has gone to bed, when really we'd generally rather go to bed too.

Grunt's Ghosts

Love Letters. It's fast, easy to learn, and can be played while the baby is asleep. A full game takes less than 30 minutes or so.

I also found BattleCON: War of the Indines to be pretty easy to learn and it's made for two players. Those would be my picks.

Virgil_Leads_You

I'm looking for so something that involves some kind of strategy element but isn't to insanely involved so we don't need days and days to finish s game. Could be card based, or a board game. Just looking for something other than scrabble. Thanks for any help!

I would second Dominion, though it's a bit dry.
It's a well regarded card game in the "deck builder" Genre.
In it, cards are resources and actions, and you start with a small amount of gold cards.
You draw a set amount of cards from this starting deck, and buy new ones with better resources from a shared pool.
You routinely shuffle your decks with new and old cards, to build basically an economy, to buy Victory Points.
Games end fairly quickly, as victory points or cards are bought up.

Virgil_Leads_You

Machi Koro is a game I played recently at pax south.
It's similar in the scheme of buying a competitive economy, but is dice based.

Every turn a player rolls dice, and all players look at the cards they've purchased to see if they correspond with the dice rolls.

If they do, they can get cash from the bank, or steal from other players, or activate abilities, etc.

There's small strategy within buying up a monopoly on specific businesses, or reacting to what your opponent buys. It's framed as a competitive race to purchase a series of upgrades to end the game, and as such, has an inherent shortness to it.

Really, there's a large breadth of games out there for two players,
You might check out Shut Up & Sit Down's website.

They have filters for 2 player games, cooperative, etc, that they enjoy, and often reviews and videos describing them.

Hope these suggestions help!

Mikey CTS

Jaipur! I really cannot recommend Jairpur to enough.

Jam Warrior

I imagine by this point the OP is laughing wistfully at the idea of being 'bored'. Or at least making a slightly hysterical sleep deprived noise that might be interpreted as laughter.

Anyway, they haven't been active since they made their post back in May and the bump this post received was from what appears to be a robot.

Also the correct answer was Jaipur.

Bursar

Maybe String Railway? It's more about spatial strategy than funky game mechanics, and it's really easy to pick up once you're done.

Iceman.USAF

Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert are a lot of fun, and quick to setup and play.

Gaddez

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/16992/tsuro

Tsuro is the most fun you will ever have with squiggly lines, it's super simple and it doesn't take that long to play.