Every spring a fleet of new graduates from high school and college wander forth into the world with one burning question: what board games should they play?
Below, we’ll go over great games whether you’re getting ready for college dorms, a first apartment, or, yes, a workplace. Board games are a catalyst for meeting future friends in all of these places, it just takes a little planning to build a versatile collection that’ll ensure great times no matter where you’re off to.
Games to Bring to the Dorm Room
The college dorms are a buzzy place, with tight spaces and near-constant people crashing in. Any games you bring with you have to be flexible, give you ins with groups you want to join, and be small enough to fit in a tiny closet or under your bed.
Trading Card Games fit all these criteria—except, perhaps, if you want to bring your entire collection with you. Magic and Star Wars: Unlimited, two of the most 
popular TCGs out there, have fresh two (or more) player decks and modes, letting you have a ready-made roommate rumble to break out. Play a round or two before, after, or between classes, or build your own decks and bring them to the gaming groups you’re all but certain to find on campus. Draft nights, too, remain some of the cheapest, most fun evenings you can have in gaming (or any hobby) – no small thing for budget-conscious college students.
TCGs, though, can be intimidating, unlike Spooktacular, a new game by Level 99 Games that puts you and up to four others in the shoes of twenty or so monsters dedicated to munching on hapless victims. Every monster’s different, but the rules are lightweight and the theme is on point. It’s a great game that’ll fit on a card table, has the looks to draw in curious players, and plays in an hour. If you’re looking for a cooperative vibe, Horrified’s myriad editions fall in a similar bucket.
Should the party make its way back to your room, it’s good to have a quality party game on hand. There are so many good ones out there, but Just One is all positive fun, as you’ll be working as one big team to feed a rotating guesser one word clues to lead them to the right word. If your clue matches anyone else’s, both get tossed, so you can be clever, funny, lucky, or all three and, if it works out, everyone wins. No player elimination, hard feelings, tricky rules, or clunky components. And if you’ve already played Just One to death, there’s a fresh version with totally new clues out now!
Lastly, a dorm is one of those places where you just might get a campaign game from start to finish. You won’t have room for hordes of minis or giant boxes, though, so consider Leviathan Wilds. A boss-battler of sorts with a focus on verticality, Wilds sees you and your pals attempting to pacify giant creatures by removing nefarious crystals. Unique abilities bring characters to life, and since you’re playing on the pages of a big book, those abilities don’t take much setup time to get cracking. It’s bright, colorful, and easy to learn too, ensuring you can fold in any curious classmates who happen to wander by.
Games for Your First Apartment
If the dorm is a motley gathering where anyone can happen by, your first apartment is a chance to carve out your personal slice of board gaming. That means bigger games, with more variety, that can play well solo.
Chip Theory’s Elder Scrolls received lots of love last year, but I’d tilt players towards Too Many Bones at the outset. Its playtime is shorter, its mechanics easier to learn, and it’s a fantastic solo experience, either controlling one, two, or three Gearlocs (heroes). Start with the core set, which gives you a bevy of content, and pick up expansions as you need more juice. Too Many Bones is a showstopper game, a collection centerpiece perfect to build around for anyone that likes chucking dice. If you are a big solo fan, keep tabs on Chip Theory’s 20 Strong series too – inventive and perfectly portable, these are great coffee table games to run through in an evening.
A good apartment is also an ideal spot for some great solo war gaming. Skies Above Britain and its related games are chunky solitaire entertainment that slide right
into the comforting complexity that gives your decisions weight over endless dice rolls while not forcing you into the rulebook every five minutes. The aerial theming, running your squadron on missions, seeing their fragile lives play out, continues to feel fresh. If you’re a budding war gamer or grizzled vet looking to spice your collection, the Skies series is one worth digging into.
Maybe, though, your apartment is where you want to tell a good story. Solo RPGs are a growing genre, with some real marvels coming in the last few years. Five Parsecs from Home is one of those, bringing a fully-realized sci-fi universe to your table. Its latest book, Planetfall, offers adventures around growing your own colony in addition to a bevy of campaigns and single-session excursions. Five Parsecs is miniature-agnostic, letting you use anything you’d like to run your games (standees, LEGO people, or custom options), so you can customize it to suit your preference. Best of all, should someone swing by, there’s easy options to have them roll up a character and join in.
Having your own space is also a good chance to delight in a miniatures game. We’ve touched on many of the big games – the Warhammers, Conquests, Legions, and Bolt Action – but don’t sleep on Gates of Niflheim and its sister titles like Escape from Stalingrad Z. These are solo/cooperative miniature adventures titles that have great stories and play out using scenario books. Not over-complex, but challenging, these games are a great way to get your foot in the miniatures door without flooding the zone with a hundred gray figures and giant rules tomes. Many of these miniatures, too, fit perfectly with the solo RPGs up above as well, effectively giving you the best bang for your mini buck.
Games for Your First Job
Starting your first real gig is a whole new world, but it’s also an option to find more friends and players. Depending on where you work, whether that’s at a job site, in an office, or the local coffee shop, there are great options to get in games over lunch or at a happy hour.
For war gamers, there’s a bevy of solitaire or quick-playing 2-person games out there. If you have access to a cafeteria or a break room, though, I’d recommend the Commands and Colors system. It’s infinitely adaptable, and is a great way, via Memoir ‘44 and Star Wars: Battle of Hoth to get folks in the door to war gaming. You’ll draw cards, play one every turn and activate the units listed, chuck some dice. It’s light, tactical, and fast enough for dice luck to be amusing rather than enraging.
Then, once they’re engaged, bump up the action with Ancients or Napoleonics, though the latter would be best with a space you can leave the game set up (or use the picture method to reset every day).
If you have a group that likes to play, then The Lord of the Rings Trick-Taking Game, which is getting its Two Towers sequel this year, is an excellent, deeper version of
games like The Crew. Here you’ll be playing through cooperative chapters, with each one introducing new cards, characters, and challenges. Your character will have their own special requirement (Pippen taking the fewest tricks is both fun and fitting) to succeed. The theming alone will pull any fantasy fans in, and as it’s largely card based, you can throw this one down at a picnic table, cafe, or after-work pub.
Sometimes, though, you just need a brawler to slap down at the table. Two-player card battlers are a genre in continual motion, from ExCeed to BattleCon to Ivion and more. Yomi 2, which comes with two separate starting boxes, is the latest in this vaunted line. You’ll pick a fighter (one of ~10 in each box) and a gem to augment their abilities. Your hand mingles with your discard pile as you play, with moves swapping cards back and forth as you and your opponent go for combos, knock-out blows, reversals, and blocks. It’s dynamic, fast, well-produced. A work buddy or two that can make for a consistent opponent brings out the best in these games, and their play time easily fits into a lunch break. If you don’t care for the collectible nature of a TCG, then Yomi 2’s pick-up-and-battle design is ideal.
Ultimately, board gaming is a hobby that can follow you anywhere, helping you make new friends, and then destroy them in cardboard warfare. It’s a beautiful thing.
