Balloons Tower Defense 5

Balloons Tower Defense 5 or BDT5 for short is a fun mobile game. BDT5 is a tower defense game meaning that the player places towers (in this case monkeys) to fend off an army of anything (in this case balloons) that follows a certain path. If a unit in that army reaches the end of the path you lose however many lives that unit is worth. BDT5 has a lot of variety with towers, tower upgrades, balloons and modes. There is the basic dart monkey tower that just shoots darts at the balloons but the increasing layers of the balloons calls for more units and upgrades. The dart monkey can have its range upgraded like many other towers and you buy upgrades with money. You get money every round, from a certain type of tower, and from killing balloons. There is also upgrades that make your darts sharper and more powerful and that is just the dart monkey. There are about 25 towers and eight upgrades for each tower so there is a lot of variety and that is just scratching the surface. There is also tons of maps, special agents, and different balloon types. BDT5 is super fun and anybody can just get it for free or near free so I would recommend it to anyone.

Five Tribes

Five Tribes is another board game I enjoy. In Five Tribes the board is made up of 30 titles that are randomized into a five tile by six tile board so that it is a different board every time. The goal of the game is to have the most points at the end of the game. In Five Tribes there is five different kinds of meeples (little wooden pieces shaped like humans) that represent and do different things. The red meeples are the assassins and with them you can kill another meeple. The blue meeples are the builders and they give you money depending on how many blue tiles they're is nearby. The green meeples are the merchants that allow you to get resources. The white meeples are the elders that allow you to get genies and the yellow meeples are the viziers that just give you points. There are many ways to get points. One way to get points is money tokens that translate directly to points. Another way is yellow meeples which give you one point for every one you have as well as ten points for every person you have more then. A third way to get points is emptying a tile by killing the last meeple there or finishing your turn and collecting on the meeples on that tile. When you do this you get the amount of points it says on the tile. Genies give you points directly by the number on their card and indirectly with the powers they have. Resources give you points for the amount of unique resources you have. Five Tribes is very complicated and has a lot more to it and I would not recommend it to the beginner. I would however recommend it to somebody that has played a few board games and who enjoys complicated strategy. Because I do Five Tribes has become my favorite board game to play.

Ticket to Ride

Ticket to Ride is another board game I have really enjoyed. In Ticket to Ride your goal is to have the most points by the end of the game. The board is a map of America with train routes and cites all over it. On your first turn you get your three routes and you have to keep at least to of them. The routes have two places and a point value on them. You get the point value if by the end of the game you have connected those two places with your trains and if you haven't you lose that amount of points. Every turn you can do one of three things, you can draw more routes, pick train cards, or place a train. Train cards come in many colors and are needed to place a train.To place a train you need to have as many cards as the train is long all of the color of the train slot on the board. You also get points depending on how long the train you placed in. The game is over after the round in which one person has two or fewer trains. Ticket to Ride is super fun for beginners and people who know the game better because it does have quite a bit of luck however several strategies that you can use to sway the game in your favor. This is one of the best if not they best game to introduce someone to board games and really hook them because how easy and fun it is for new players.

Settlers of Catan

I have really been getting into board games and I don't mean games like monopoly that everybody knows of. What I mean is games that the average person doesn't know but are still extremely fun. One of these games is Settlers of Catan. Settlers of Catan is a classic resource management game. In Settlers you place settlements to gather resources to build roads, cites, development cards, and more settlements. They're five different types of resources: wheat, stone, brick, sheep, and wood and different combinations of them let you build different things.. Your settlements produce resources when a resources tile next to it has the number on it rolled. First person to 10 points wins and you get points from your cities, settlements, and possibly your development cards. Roads separate your settlements because there needs to be at least two roads between settlements. Cities are upgraded settlements and they get you double resources and more points. Development cards can be a variety of things including just points. Overall Settlers of Catan is a super fun and relatively simple board game I like to play and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to get into board games.