When you play a new game, and immediately everyone asks to play it again, you think you might have discovered something good.
When everyone wants to play it repeatedly again and again, you know you’ve got a family card-game hit!
That’s the way we discovered Trio from Happy Camper.
Likewise, that’s how a game shoots right to the top of our “to review” pile – bumping ahead of many other fun games in the queue.
So let’s talk about Trio!
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I had a great time last weekend playing a bunch of new games with friends at SaltCon Spring 2025.
This year I was able to get in a few games after work Thursday night, a bunch of games for a full Friday, followed by a handful of games for half a day on Saturday.
Most of the games I played were new to me. Some game were hits that I’d love to play again. While other games fell flat and I was happy to move on.
If you’d like to know more about the SaltCon event itself, check out my post from last month covering the many things that happen at SaltCon. This post will focus on mini-reviews of the 17 games I played – in the order in which I played them.
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It’s odd to think of Spring being in the air when we just rolled into February.
But I can’t help look forward to Spring when I think about the SaltCon Spring event coming up in one month!
Regular followers of our family board game reviews will be familiar with us sharing about the SaltCon game convention each year.
With the popularity of board games skyrocketing over the past decade, board game conventions have likewise grown in popularity. Chances are you can find one near you with a quick online search.
And SaltCon Spring is the board game convention I attend every year in Layton, UT. It’s local and it’s a lot of fun.
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Our 14th year of Board Game Gift Guides is here!
For each of the past 13 years, we’ve recommended around 40 games to get your friends and family as gifts.
We know that’s a lot to look through, so we’ve dialed it back a bit this year to 25 great games!
Below, you’ll find a few games in each of the following categories to get your juices flowing about what game gifts you can give this year.
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Strange things are happening at the Wonderland amusement park.
That can mean only one thing – Finley has struck again.
It’s up to you to stop all the madness. You must Find Finley!
Find Finley is a new family board game from Fat Brain Toy Co. that will have your kids exercising their deduction and reasoning skills.
Read on to discover more about this new family board game and get a chance to win a copy for your family!
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The first weekend of March, I spent a couple of days playing a bunch of fun games at SaltCon Spring 2024.
SaltCon Spring is a 4-day event held on the first weekend of March. This year, I arrived Thursday night after work and stayed through Saturday afternoon (taking Friday off work so I could play all day).
Even though SaltCon now hosts game events a few times each year, the spring gathering is the biggest of the bunch and one I look forward to every year.
This year, the attendance hit 2,400!
Read on to get a quick recap of the 16 different games I played and my thoughts on each.
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When playing with family, we like games that have a good balance of both luck and strategy. We enjoy having to make interesting choices during a game but also like an element of luck to keep things interesting.
So when a game has “Lucky” in the very name, should we shun it?
Don’t be too quick to do so!
At least, you shouldn’t do so with Lucky Numbers by Tiki Editions.
That’s because Lucky Numbers has great choices throughout to keep players engaged and having fun.
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This time of year, it’s great to gather as family and friends for some light-hearted games.
Similo, by Horrible Guild, fits that very well.
That’s because Similo is a cooperative deduction game where everyone either wins or loses together. It comes in a variety of card sets of 30 cards such as Fables, Myths, Animals, History, and more. All of which have fantastic artwork that add to the enjoyment of the game.
The goal is to make the other players guess one secret character by playing other character cards from your hand as clues, stating whether they’re similar to or different from the secret character.
And because it’s nice and compact, it’s a great game to give as a gift as well.
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We’ve posted a Board Game Gift Guide for the past 12 years. And each year we’ve recommended around 40 games to get your friends and family as gifts.
Which means that through our annual gift guides, we’ve shared close to 500 game ideas!
Well, rather than give another list of new games to check out, we’ve decide to roll back through our 12 years of game gift guides and pick out our very favorites to recommend for 2023.
So, without further ado, here’s our recommended favorites in each category.
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SaltCon Spring just keeps getting bigger and better every year!
This year over 2,000 people enjoyed playing board games, card games, dice games, party games, and more for 4 days straight as part of SaltCon Spring 2023.
And with that many people, there’s a broad range of gaming interests. That’s why there are also areas in the convention center set aside for RPGs, miniatures painting, dexterity games, play-to-win games, competitions, and an Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator.
But even as the event itself keeps getting bigger, this year the game playing for me was much more intimate.
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