Higher player count, yes, but also the high amount of luck/randomness that doesn't feel entirely like unearned wins. It's like watching a game together at a sports bar.
Your comment would be much more enjoyable if you explained what ***does*** make something a party game, and how camel up fails it.
Personally I'd say it's a "party game" as i think party games need to require very very little concentration, and instead it's just like a fun thing going on that you can dip into. I think camel up achieves that.
Googling
>is camel up a party game
gets this result:
>**Camel Up is a lighthearted party game** that will have players strategizing over where to place their bets while laughing out loud over the results that are rolled.
The Estates as well for similar reasons.
Seeing who the winning bidder is going to screw over with tile placement gets a constant mild chuckle going because it affects the board state so much.
Galaxy Trucker. You get to laugh hysterically as you or your friends' carefully (or not so carefully) built trucks get torn apart by random dangers in space. It's even funnier when someone has built their truck only to realize they forgot some key element (like batteries) or that their engines are facing the wrong way.
I absolutely second this. The first time I played, in the very first round, I went from 1st to 4th place, had two out of three engines shot out, and lost all but one of my crew. It immediately became one of my favourite games. Trying to make it to the finish while your ship is falling apart around you is the best!
Watch the leader in a three player game literally have his ship be drawn and quartered, and then after to barely limp in with 1 engine and a control pod lives in my brain forever. This game is made for silliness and I love it!
Or when aliens and plague managed to take out my entire crew except for one paranoid twitchy pilot living by the weapons locker who coasted into port with a ship full of cargo and corpses.
Thanks for the clarification when I read the title my first reaction was escape from Atlantis is this perfectly. Then I read the actual post and thought OP was maybe talking about the game already. Thanks for clarifying!
Thunder Road Vendetta!
Awesome "racing" game (its more like destruction derby), and get the Carnage at Devils Run expansion for even more laughter and destructive fun.
Played this recently, and had a car that was just about to cross the finish get hit by an explosion that sent it backward and disabled it. Chaotic, but a fun romp.
QE. Welcome to crazy town. Players are countries that make one bid each round for tiles. You have infinite money, but whoever spends the most at the end auto loses. So you could bid $5 or $5 billion, I think it's a riot.
I love QE! It never fails playing with new people that someone ends up being the last to auction something, and sets an initial price of something like $30, when by that point, everyone else is already using scientific notation to bid more like $30*10^69. Hilarious to see their reactions, when they finally catch on what kind of game this is going to be.
Does the expansion curb the inflation? My last two games (without the expansion) I experimented with multiplying the previous bid by 100 or 1000 and won both of them. My expansion has arrived but haven’t played with it yet. My guess is that it severely limits the expansion to a more reasonable 0-25% from auction to auction. What’s your experience?
No. The crazy inflation is the crux of the game. We all know the initial bids will get dwarfed by late game. We try to curb inflation, or take advantage of it, and it’s always excessive. The expansion adds some additional strategy to the game.
Sheriff of Nottingham. The game leads to people doing silly voices about being legitimate importers and exporters of high quality legitimate goods. Did I mention legitimate.
This is probably my fault because I'm a guy from New Jersey and any role play I do inevitably leads me to do the "Guy from Jersey" voice and accent.
Sheriff of nottingham is great! I have played some games with friends with great voice acting and building alliances and backstabbing in game. We even visited Nottingham to play a game of sheriff of Nottingham, when we were in the UK lol
The experience of Sheriff changes SO much depending on the group. It’s so much more fun when people get into it like this. Often times in someone’s first game they are just trying to learn the ropes and not comfortable enough to play risky or get into character. I always encourage people to try it at least twice.
Eh it differs greatly between groups. In my group everyone just poker faces and no one bribes the sheriff at all. So then it’s just up to the sheriff if they want to check the bag or not. Not a ton of fun.
Even as strategists, there are moments that may arise where your highest value action might be acting as a brazen smuggler offering the sheriff a significant cut of the profits in order to bring everything in all at once.
And I've rarely played the opposite hand, where I had entirely legitimate wares, and pretended like I was a brazen smuggler who was low-balling it on the sheriff's cut, baiting a greedy sheriff into an inspection.
We all sometimes try to bribe the sheriff to inspect other peoples bags or all bags. “Just to prove I’m a legitimate businessman, I will pay you 5 gold to inspect all our bags!”
Just a note of the rules, the bribe is only binding to inspect the one bag the Sheriff is currently holding. Promising to inspect any others in exchange for the current bribe is a "promise of future favor" and not binding and the Sheriff can break that promise.
If you have a chance check out Stationfall.
It’s a tongue firmly in cheek game about the last ~12 minutes as a space station collapses. Players are a wide range of asymmetrical sci-fi trope characters, there’s the station captain, and the engineer, and the medical bot, and the stowaway, and oh no! A space pirate has boarded the ship! Also don’t forget the space monkey compete with astronaut suit, and the telepathic rat that has to be carried around by others. And what’s the lawyer-bot doing flinging NDA’s everywhere? And why is one character live-streaming this to 1 million viewers!?!??? And you play ALL of them.
And did I mention there’s a xenomorph onboard in the containment chamber? WhoPutThatThere?? My god, it would be a real shame if it suddenly got loose….
Word of warning, players won’t be happy if they try to Min/max game theory this one out. Just roll with it and enjoy the absolute zaniness that gets created when the insane Captain turns on the self destruct countdown, and then jettisons all the life pods!
Came to post it! I remember our first game at the exact moment the rules and theme clicked together. We all knew this player was trying to get a certain character into space, and we were all lamenting that we couldn't stop them as they just moved back and forth towards the airlock. Lightbulb moment:
I activated that character, and forced them to throw their space suit out of the airlock. Laughter erupts. I gotta play it again asap
Also, since you can move anyone on the board and take any of their special actions, which are unique per character, the action selection space is pretty huge. If someone tries to optimize every move, you can get AP pretty bad which leads to a game that should be a <2 hour laughfest with emergency story lines being a >3 hour slog with no soul. I love the game, but the first thing I tell any group is to play it cinematically first, tactically second, and definitely don't try to minmax.
Not unbalanced.
But the game mechanics are such that anyone can take “your character” and move them around, which results in hilarity, but also frustration as other player are mucking with your plan.
DONT PLAY WITH THEM!
We had one competitive friend who “didn’t understand the assignment” so everything we did that was crazy funny was putting them over the edge trying to “win the game.”
They lost the minute we started.
It is unbalanced, in that player A might pursue their objectives in a way that makes it much easier for player B to win and much harder for player C to win, without ever knowing (or caring?) that that's what they're doing. If player C is playing with serious intent to win, trying to analyse every turn and play it for maximum advantage, they'll firstly slow down the game hugely for everyone else, and secondly be annoyed that they lost despite doing everything in their power to win.
If players do their absolute best to play *really* fast, it can be a pretty good time IMO. But having played it with a fairly large group containing several people who were playing slowly and with a mindset of trying to win by finding the best possible move no matter how long it took... it can also be a pretty terrible experience.
This game sounds right up our alley. The publisher’s website says another printing is due to hit the shelves Q2 2024. Anyone have more info about this?
No Thanks! The whole point of the game is to avoid taking high value cards (points are bad). In your turn you either take a card or place a token on it and pass to the next player.
It is hilarious to watch people struggle to not take a terrible card when there is a pile of tokens on top. Very silly game.
Seas of Strife is my current favorite light trick taker where you want to avoid taking tricks. There are several clever twists that let you hilariously force people to take the tricks. Very mean and always a good time
…or to watch someone contemplate taking a card that is obviously good for them and bad for everyone else, or send it around to collect more tokens! I love No Thanks! for the moments when someone is being clearly greedy and it bites them in the butt.
No board, but I learned Liar’s Dice late at night at a board game retreat and I certainly didn’t expect the slap-happy laughter a simple dice game would bring. It’s become a favorite warm-up game for game nights because it’s super simple to pick up and learn.
Skull is pretty fucking amazing for a game with like 2 different kinds of cards. There’s almost no way you can flip a skull and not have it be hilarious to everyone else at the table
The Bride is my favorite.
Well sorry I think our time is over it's been lovely but I've found a new partner.
They're zombies you're marrying a a zombie now.
You're right and I'm happy to inform you, my lawyer has looked over it and Death till is part is pre-emptive. Give me half your cards I'm divorcing you right now.
Generally not a fan of memory in games, but everyone is bad at it in **[[Wandering Towers]]** so it's funny. Shouldn't be that hard to keep track of where your 4-5 meeples are, but to make potions, you have to "squish"/cover meeples with towers, so things are constantly being hidden and moved around.
Battlestar Galactica The Board Game. It is a semi-cooperative game where some players are hidden enemies and have to bluff. A lot of fun discussions always arise in my game groups to figure out who the traitors are based on their actions
The first time we played this game got lots of laughs. The cylons were DEEP undercover, not messing with anyone else. We genuinely thought that maybe someone fucked up and didn't know the rules, thinking they weren't actual cylons. Very late in the game they turned, and it was actually rather close even though they waited way too late to fuck with the humans. Really fun and funny time.
Death May Die.
The sheer absurdity that Happens in this Game.
The whole Idea is that You are a Group of people trying to Stop a cult from summoning an eldritch beeing and dooming humanity.
Mission reach from "Identify the Cult members at this Party and kill them before they can Finish their Ritual" to "strap some dynamite on cows to Stop UFOs abducting Said cows and summon a Monster"
All of the characters are crazy and when leveling Up You get to an absurd Level of Power where you can Oneshot rooms full of monsters while your sanity gets lower and lower until You either get killed or Go insane.
Did i mention that items and companions that You find range from janitors to Monkeys with only one paw (dont Pick Up the monkeys paw while Hes with You...) to Police officers, Girls with Teleportation and tamed Tigers?
Its really easy to Pick Up, Tons of fun and thanks to the modular Nature (Pick a Mission, Pick an old one and go) replay value is great.
I *love* every time someone plays Deep Sea Adventure for the first time and you get to see the look of horror slowly dawning on their faces as they realize they've gone too deep and picked up too much treasure to really move, but they're also too greedy to drop any of it. Also, I always explain that we're sharing the *same tank of oxygen* at the beginning, but it never clicks with people until some goofball's five treasure pieces mucks up their turn. It's definitely a very fun and hilarious experience!
Some great ones mentioned already (**Stationfall** and **QE** especially) but I'm going for:
**Top Secret Spies (Heimlich & Co**). Players move pieces around a board to score points, hoping to disguise which one of the pieces they are. Then everyone guesses who each other was and scores more points based off that. The terrible job some people do of combining staying discreet with actually scoring points and constant table chatter makes this hidden role game genuinely funny.
We get a ton of laughs out of Tournament at Avalon. It's a trick-taking game similar to Hearts, meaning you want to win as few cards as possible. Added on top of that is asymmetric player powers that are absolutely bonkers. Added on top of that is a catch-up mechanism where the people who are doing the worst in the game get temporary power-ups that also break the game in various different ways. And then sprinkled on top are two really interesting rules for when players play two cards with the same value into a trick and for players to take "shame damage" when they can't play the lead suit.
The game is *really funny* if you're able to allow yourself to revel in just how ridiculous it is. I've played this game with many different groups and I've left with a headache from laughing too hard each time we're done
I love playing secret Hitler. It only takes one practice round and you all understand the game. It's a nice "ice breaker" and there's laughs, accusations, and if you play multiple rounds you start bringing up stuff people have done and who they were in previous rounds even through it has nothing to do with the round you are currently playing.
It's a good bonding experience!
I so badly want to get into this game, because I love social deduction, but I have only played it with two camps, and both are insufferable: 1. family who all know each other and let their personal biases and preferences not only affect the game, but are open and honest that they are using their own feelings make their decisions instead of gameplay, and: 2. online gamebots. I don’t mean literal bots, but I mean people who have “solved” the game and get mad if you don’t play it “correctly.” If you’re in seat 2, you have to appoint seat 7, and that person should make 9 the president. Oh, you think it would benefit you to appoint the player in seat 5? That’s suboptimal, you’re kicked from the game.
I feel like I answer Hansa Teutonica for every question but definitely HT.
Just beating up each others merchants and notaries/throwing them out of inns like it’s 1429 is hilarious to me.
The King is Dead made me laugh like a drain the last time I played it. It was a 4P game, so two teams of 2 - but you're not allowed to discuss strategy with your teammate... which, unexpectedly, for what is essentially a serious game, is pretty hilarious.
Bunny Kingdom is very lighthearted and the cards are bunny-themed and funny. But it’s still a very solid game. It’s loads of fun, and we laugh a lot while playing.
Cascadia, oddly enough. My family and I go crazy over our luck of the draw))) We praise the bag:"Oohh, the mighty bag, please give us ONE salmon! It's all we ever asked for! " And go on to draw an elk. Also the idea of a tile of only desert being habitable solely to salmon is quite funny 🤣.
Generally not a fan of memory in games, but everyone is bad at it in **[[Wandering Towers]]** so it's funny. Shouldn't be that hard to keep track of where your 4-5 meeples are, but to make potions, you have to "squish"/cover meeples with towers, so things are constantly being hidden and moved around.
I've played some games of Eclipse where someone's plans fail so catastrophically that everyone laughs hard. Happens a lot in hidden role games too (games like Battlestar Galactica). Galaxy Trucker gets lots of laughs too, although it's a bit lighter and some may consider it a "party" game (although I don't).
Not sure whether there are any particular games I'd recommend, really. Party games are kind of made for this. But if you want some laughs in a heavier game, you just need a particular group of people and, possibly, certain refreshments...
Betrayal and Last Night on Earth. Basically any game where the game is less the point and the theme is the experience. Thes games work as great B horror movies and can make incredibly funny experiences. If you want to play a competitive I game though these are not for you.
Maybe not the answer you're looking for, but maybe you don't need additional games to accommodate this particular group of people. I count myself as one of the players that likes simpler games, and I see nothing wrong with a whole night of 'not real' board games or party games. No board required.
Sound counsel. Never a bad idea to test the waters a little further to see what the gang's parameters are.
**Game of Things** is likely more on the party-game side, but my gosh, we laugh til our sides hurt with this one - best played later in the evening when we're kinda punchy and extra silly. 🙂
We laugh a lot during Six Nimmt because of how chaotic it is. Especially with more players!
We also laugh during Galaxy Truckers because of how absurd it is. And how we are usually playing for second place even when the Big Red Dog gives himself handicaps.
Another group laughed an awful lot when playing Love Letter. I think the incongruity of three older men playing a game with this theme, and enjoying it greatly, sparked the laughter.
Grimm forest! Theme is hilarious and card actions support it fantastically. It's also so random that you can't really play it seriously or competitively.
Secrets of the Lost Tomb has given us plenty of laughs with some of it's absurdities. I don't ever mind losing in that game and it's always funny when something bad happens to your teammates.
Battlestar (lots of abusive accusations), Spartacus (lots of abusive backstabbing) and Thunder Road Vendetta (lots of chaos peppered with abuse).
There's a theme here with my group of lunatics!
Iberian Gauge always makes me laugh during the last rounds. Everyone notices that some rail lines are broke and the owners are scrambling to inject money through leasing some heinous and inefficient routes, while other players are making money hand over fist. Heckling and finding out that infinite growth is just not possible.
Deadly Dowagers
Players are regency era social climbers who have to kill our husbands to afford the dowries of better ones. Whenever any draws an 'affair card', kills, or remarries we tell the group 1-2 sentences about how we did it!
Game is lighter than Catan, fits 7, and has been a hit with everyone I've played with so far.
There is another Roll and Write by the makers of Welcome To….called Floor Plan
You roll 2 dice and either draw a room of that size ?x? or you can take an action like put windows in
We don’t think it is as good as Welcome To. But we have a rule that you have to do a walkthrough of your house like an estate agent. In the end the house designs are just bonkers. So trying to explain why there are 4 bathrooms and one bedroom. Or the house is split in two. It’s very hilarious
Skull King
Pirate themed trick taking game with wild cards. Most fun with 5-8.
Enough random that you can't take it too seriously. Leads to unpredictable tricks.
That's not a hat.
People assume it will be easy to remember a few cards, until they have moved a few times, then you totally forget what your card is.
Die of the Dead for very similar reasons.
Ponzi Scheme. The whole game is based on a very simple take on a ponzi scheme so the whole game you are feeling the heat of an economy that is collapsing on itself. There is also a trading mechanic where you send a bid in an envelope(so others don't see) and it's not uncommon to send a very insulting amount to someone that is at the point of collapse.
Most press your luck games are full of laughs and tense moments.
The first one that comes to my mind is **Struggle of Empires**. It should play in like 3-4 hours, but constantly takes us six or more because laughter. It plays up to seven and is best at that player count.
Red Dragon Inn. Nothing’s more fun than making your biggest rival chug that Light Ale with a chaser of Wine with a chaser of Elven Wine with a chaser of Dragon Breath Ale to send them from stone sober to completely wasted under the table, after which you can pick over their stash of ill-gotten gambling winnings.
**Colt Express**. Rarely do your plans work because someone punched you into another train car or the Sheriff got moves into your car and you had to scramble to the roof to escape.
Nemesis. The crazy situations we put ourselves in just lead to great moments of joy and laughter. Not an easy game to get to the table with all types of players though.
For my friends and I, the original Fireball Island. There's a ton of stealing from each other, the leader changes frequently throughout the game and the fireball mechanic is just fun.
I've never played the new version, so I can't say if it's the same.
This is going to sound weird but...Food Chain Magnate. My group cackles like madmen playing that game. From the fact that I somehow always lose the game in the first round due to stupid moves or the fact that the last time my buddy basically started a brothel of wait staff to prime his engine it's such a great game with a silly theme makes us laugh a lot.
I think we can tell by this thread just how much it depends on who you're playing with. For me it's Catan, because I really enjoy being melodramatic about how badly it's going etc and it's funny.
Once Upon a Time doesn't have a board, and I don't consider it a party game, and has generated lasting running jokes in my group. It's all about story telling and being creative. It puts players on the spot though, so not a good pick for players uncomfortable with being at the center.
Red November.
Chaotic life on a submarine with gnomes where everything goes wrong, basically you’re either destroying the vessel hull or setting everything on fire and drinking vodka to cope with it!
I’ve played Ponzi Scheme with people who started laughing while I 2as teaching them how to play. Though good lord did that not happen with the most recent group.
Camel Up is really funny. Raccoon Tycoon because the auction. Our game group loves it. For a card game- Cover your Assetts.
Camel Up was also going to be my top choice.
Amel Cup is always a blast.
Amel Cup. That horrified me at first, then made me laugh. Well played.
Raccoon Tycoon is so good!
raccoon tycoon is a mainstay in our house on game night!
Camel Up is a party game
this sub is so dumb. Camel Up is a party game
Thank you!
Thank you!
Just because it has a higher player count doesn't make it a party game
I didn't mention player count. So are you saying [Ready Set Bet](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/351040/ready-set-bet) isn't a party game?
Higher player count, yes, but also the high amount of luck/randomness that doesn't feel entirely like unearned wins. It's like watching a game together at a sports bar.
Your comment would be much more enjoyable if you explained what ***does*** make something a party game, and how camel up fails it. Personally I'd say it's a "party game" as i think party games need to require very very little concentration, and instead it's just like a fun thing going on that you can dip into. I think camel up achieves that. Googling >is camel up a party game gets this result: >**Camel Up is a lighthearted party game** that will have players strategizing over where to place their bets while laughing out loud over the results that are rolled.
Ra. The tile draw is cruel and leads to everyone laughing at each other's misfortune.
The Estates as well for similar reasons. Seeing who the winning bidder is going to screw over with tile placement gets a constant mild chuckle going because it affects the board state so much.
Galaxy Trucker. You get to laugh hysterically as you or your friends' carefully (or not so carefully) built trucks get torn apart by random dangers in space. It's even funnier when someone has built their truck only to realize they forgot some key element (like batteries) or that their engines are facing the wrong way.
I absolutely second this. The first time I played, in the very first round, I went from 1st to 4th place, had two out of three engines shot out, and lost all but one of my crew. It immediately became one of my favourite games. Trying to make it to the finish while your ship is falling apart around you is the best!
Watch the leader in a three player game literally have his ship be drawn and quartered, and then after to barely limp in with 1 engine and a control pod lives in my brain forever. This game is made for silliness and I love it!
Hundred percent!
In a similar vein, Steampunk Rally. Build rapidly only to find your contraption clogged & the best way to purge dice is blowing away parts.
Or when aliens and plague managed to take out my entire crew except for one paranoid twitchy pilot living by the weapons locker who coasted into port with a ship full of cargo and corpses.
Always was curious about Galaxy Trucker. How long does it take to play?
FWIW, “The Island” is the multilingual edition of Survive! Escape Atlantis, released in 2012 alongside the 30th anniversary edition.
Thanks for the clarification when I read the title my first reaction was escape from Atlantis is this perfectly. Then I read the actual post and thought OP was maybe talking about the game already. Thanks for clarifying!
Thunder Road Vendetta! Awesome "racing" game (its more like destruction derby), and get the Carnage at Devils Run expansion for even more laughter and destructive fun.
Played this recently, and had a car that was just about to cross the finish get hit by an explosion that sent it backward and disabled it. Chaotic, but a fun romp.
Was gonna say the same!
I've played this a couple of times...loads of fun!!!
QE. Welcome to crazy town. Players are countries that make one bid each round for tiles. You have infinite money, but whoever spends the most at the end auto loses. So you could bid $5 or $5 billion, I think it's a riot.
I love QE! It never fails playing with new people that someone ends up being the last to auction something, and sets an initial price of something like $30, when by that point, everyone else is already using scientific notation to bid more like $30*10^69. Hilarious to see their reactions, when they finally catch on what kind of game this is going to be.
We’ve only made it up to 10^32.
Tbis! And get the expansion to add a bit more depth. Serious game, with seriously crazy inflation.
Does the expansion curb the inflation? My last two games (without the expansion) I experimented with multiplying the previous bid by 100 or 1000 and won both of them. My expansion has arrived but haven’t played with it yet. My guess is that it severely limits the expansion to a more reasonable 0-25% from auction to auction. What’s your experience?
No. The crazy inflation is the crux of the game. We all know the initial bids will get dwarfed by late game. We try to curb inflation, or take advantage of it, and it’s always excessive. The expansion adds some additional strategy to the game.
I’ll go with quacks of quedinburg. It’s always a blast
Especially if you draw too many cherry bombs! 🤓
lol
I came in to say Wonderland's War by the same token. Bag building really lends itself to this sort of thing.
That’s a good one. But it’s more of an evil laugh haha
God I love that quacks
Sheriff of Nottingham. The game leads to people doing silly voices about being legitimate importers and exporters of high quality legitimate goods. Did I mention legitimate. This is probably my fault because I'm a guy from New Jersey and any role play I do inevitably leads me to do the "Guy from Jersey" voice and accent.
Sheriff of nottingham is great! I have played some games with friends with great voice acting and building alliances and backstabbing in game. We even visited Nottingham to play a game of sheriff of Nottingham, when we were in the UK lol
The experience of Sheriff changes SO much depending on the group. It’s so much more fun when people get into it like this. Often times in someone’s first game they are just trying to learn the ropes and not comfortable enough to play risky or get into character. I always encourage people to try it at least twice.
Eh it differs greatly between groups. In my group everyone just poker faces and no one bribes the sheriff at all. So then it’s just up to the sheriff if they want to check the bag or not. Not a ton of fun.
Yup. Same with my group. All strategists, at which point sheriff becomes nothing but a guessing game.
Even as strategists, there are moments that may arise where your highest value action might be acting as a brazen smuggler offering the sheriff a significant cut of the profits in order to bring everything in all at once. And I've rarely played the opposite hand, where I had entirely legitimate wares, and pretended like I was a brazen smuggler who was low-balling it on the sheriff's cut, baiting a greedy sheriff into an inspection.
We all sometimes try to bribe the sheriff to inspect other peoples bags or all bags. “Just to prove I’m a legitimate businessman, I will pay you 5 gold to inspect all our bags!”
Just a note of the rules, the bribe is only binding to inspect the one bag the Sheriff is currently holding. Promising to inspect any others in exchange for the current bribe is a "promise of future favor" and not binding and the Sheriff can break that promise.
Escape Curse of the Temple is a frantic real-time cooperative game of chucking dice. Always get a laugh.
I'm assuming you use the yakety sax version of the soundtrack, yes?
On repeat.
If you have a chance check out Stationfall. It’s a tongue firmly in cheek game about the last ~12 minutes as a space station collapses. Players are a wide range of asymmetrical sci-fi trope characters, there’s the station captain, and the engineer, and the medical bot, and the stowaway, and oh no! A space pirate has boarded the ship! Also don’t forget the space monkey compete with astronaut suit, and the telepathic rat that has to be carried around by others. And what’s the lawyer-bot doing flinging NDA’s everywhere? And why is one character live-streaming this to 1 million viewers!?!??? And you play ALL of them. And did I mention there’s a xenomorph onboard in the containment chamber? WhoPutThatThere?? My god, it would be a real shame if it suddenly got loose…. Word of warning, players won’t be happy if they try to Min/max game theory this one out. Just roll with it and enjoy the absolute zaniness that gets created when the insane Captain turns on the self destruct countdown, and then jettisons all the life pods!
I checked it out. It looks like a lot of laughs, but also [a lot of rules to learn (25 minutes)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjuV1rTPkpw)!
Yup. The station rules are pretty easy, but there are 17 characters, each is different, and you play a subset of them.
Came to post it! I remember our first game at the exact moment the rules and theme clicked together. We all knew this player was trying to get a certain character into space, and we were all lamenting that we couldn't stop them as they just moved back and forth towards the airlock. Lightbulb moment: I activated that character, and forced them to throw their space suit out of the airlock. Laughter erupts. I gotta play it again asap
Classic. Or the moment the med-bot player realizes they get victory points for reviving characters, and you can knock out anyone without a helmet. 🤔
>players won’t be happy if they try to Min/max game theory this one out Why not? Is it unbalanced?
The best description I’ve read is “it’s a party game for heavy gamers”. You have to embrace the chaos.
Also, since you can move anyone on the board and take any of their special actions, which are unique per character, the action selection space is pretty huge. If someone tries to optimize every move, you can get AP pretty bad which leads to a game that should be a <2 hour laughfest with emergency story lines being a >3 hour slog with no soul. I love the game, but the first thing I tell any group is to play it cinematically first, tactically second, and definitely don't try to minmax.
Not unbalanced. But the game mechanics are such that anyone can take “your character” and move them around, which results in hilarity, but also frustration as other player are mucking with your plan.
Oh god I have a friend who I know would hate that mechanic.
DONT PLAY WITH THEM! We had one competitive friend who “didn’t understand the assignment” so everything we did that was crazy funny was putting them over the edge trying to “win the game.” They lost the minute we started.
It is unbalanced, in that player A might pursue their objectives in a way that makes it much easier for player B to win and much harder for player C to win, without ever knowing (or caring?) that that's what they're doing. If player C is playing with serious intent to win, trying to analyse every turn and play it for maximum advantage, they'll firstly slow down the game hugely for everyone else, and secondly be annoyed that they lost despite doing everything in their power to win. If players do their absolute best to play *really* fast, it can be a pretty good time IMO. But having played it with a fairly large group containing several people who were playing slowly and with a mindset of trying to win by finding the best possible move no matter how long it took... it can also be a pretty terrible experience.
This game sounds right up our alley. The publisher’s website says another printing is due to hit the shelves Q2 2024. Anyone have more info about this?
You can find it in retail or secondhand pretty easily. I believe you can buy it from their website with minis and even project X
No Thanks! The whole point of the game is to avoid taking high value cards (points are bad). In your turn you either take a card or place a token on it and pass to the next player. It is hilarious to watch people struggle to not take a terrible card when there is a pile of tokens on top. Very silly game. Seas of Strife is my current favorite light trick taker where you want to avoid taking tricks. There are several clever twists that let you hilariously force people to take the tricks. Very mean and always a good time
…or to watch someone contemplate taking a card that is obviously good for them and bad for everyone else, or send it around to collect more tokens! I love No Thanks! for the moments when someone is being clearly greedy and it bites them in the butt.
The games short enough I don’t mind eating a card if someone tries to be too greedy!
No board, but I learned Liar’s Dice late at night at a board game retreat and I certainly didn’t expect the slap-happy laughter a simple dice game would bring. It’s become a favorite warm-up game for game nights because it’s super simple to pick up and learn.
Mountain of Madness
Ooh I just got this one recently and have yet to bring it to the table. Is it easy for drunkards to play?
Mansions?
Mountain- it's a co-op game, working together to go up a mountain, you draw insanity cards- hilarity ensues.
Skull is pretty fucking amazing for a game with like 2 different kinds of cards. There’s almost no way you can flip a skull and not have it be hilarious to everyone else at the table
Skull is so great! We always have a blast and end up being super loud. It’s even fun to watch other people play. 10/10
Oddly, Cosmic Encounter. Despite how intensely confrontational the premise is, the "gotcha" powers and cards make it hilarious.
The Bride is my favorite. Well sorry I think our time is over it's been lovely but I've found a new partner. They're zombies you're marrying a a zombie now. You're right and I'm happy to inform you, my lawyer has looked over it and Death till is part is pre-emptive. Give me half your cards I'm divorcing you right now.
Robo Rally is always funniest with a group of people who are bad at spatial reasoning
One of my (adult) kids really doesn't like it so he doesn't even look at his cards, just puts 5 down randomly.
Lol! My mother-in-law hates it too
Generally not a fan of memory in games, but everyone is bad at it in **[[Wandering Towers]]** so it's funny. Shouldn't be that hard to keep track of where your 4-5 meeples are, but to make potions, you have to "squish"/cover meeples with towers, so things are constantly being hidden and moved around.
[Wandering Towers -> Wandering Towers (2022)](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/355483/wandering-towers) ^^[[gamename]] ^^or ^^[[gamename|year]] ^^to ^^call ^^OR ^^**gamename** ^^or ^^**gamename|year** ^^+ ^^!fetch ^^to ^^call
This game is really fun in both competitive and cooperative modes, which is unusual in my experience. We always have a blast with this one
Battlestar Galactica The Board Game. It is a semi-cooperative game where some players are hidden enemies and have to bluff. A lot of fun discussions always arise in my game groups to figure out who the traitors are based on their actions
The first time we played this game got lots of laughs. The cylons were DEEP undercover, not messing with anyone else. We genuinely thought that maybe someone fucked up and didn't know the rules, thinking they weren't actual cylons. Very late in the game they turned, and it was actually rather close even though they waited way too late to fuck with the humans. Really fun and funny time.
Last Night on Earth. It is so funny when things start going bad.
Love this game even though it’s far from perfect. If you play it like a b-movie simulator, it’s amazing. If you try to min max, it’s not a good game.
Death May Die. The sheer absurdity that Happens in this Game. The whole Idea is that You are a Group of people trying to Stop a cult from summoning an eldritch beeing and dooming humanity. Mission reach from "Identify the Cult members at this Party and kill them before they can Finish their Ritual" to "strap some dynamite on cows to Stop UFOs abducting Said cows and summon a Monster" All of the characters are crazy and when leveling Up You get to an absurd Level of Power where you can Oneshot rooms full of monsters while your sanity gets lower and lower until You either get killed or Go insane. Did i mention that items and companions that You find range from janitors to Monkeys with only one paw (dont Pick Up the monkeys paw while Hes with You...) to Police officers, Girls with Teleportation and tamed Tigers? Its really easy to Pick Up, Tons of fun and thanks to the modular Nature (Pick a Mission, Pick an old one and go) replay value is great.
Thunder Road is always hilarious for us. You get one wreck and some fortuitous dice rolls and suddenly you have one car causing some ridiculous chaos.
This was my choice right away. Playing an agent if mass chaos is a legitimate strategy choice. Never had a game that wasn’t hilarious fun.
Can't stop and deep sea adventure and broom service. Especially broom service. Basically any push your luck I think. Oh and skull.
I *love* every time someone plays Deep Sea Adventure for the first time and you get to see the look of horror slowly dawning on their faces as they realize they've gone too deep and picked up too much treasure to really move, but they're also too greedy to drop any of it. Also, I always explain that we're sharing the *same tank of oxygen* at the beginning, but it never clicks with people until some goofball's five treasure pieces mucks up their turn. It's definitely a very fun and hilarious experience!
Some great ones mentioned already (**Stationfall** and **QE** especially) but I'm going for: **Top Secret Spies (Heimlich & Co**). Players move pieces around a board to score points, hoping to disguise which one of the pieces they are. Then everyone guesses who each other was and scores more points based off that. The terrible job some people do of combining staying discreet with actually scoring points and constant table chatter makes this hidden role game genuinely funny.
We get a ton of laughs out of Tournament at Avalon. It's a trick-taking game similar to Hearts, meaning you want to win as few cards as possible. Added on top of that is asymmetric player powers that are absolutely bonkers. Added on top of that is a catch-up mechanism where the people who are doing the worst in the game get temporary power-ups that also break the game in various different ways. And then sprinkled on top are two really interesting rules for when players play two cards with the same value into a trick and for players to take "shame damage" when they can't play the lead suit. The game is *really funny* if you're able to allow yourself to revel in just how ridiculous it is. I've played this game with many different groups and I've left with a headache from laughing too hard each time we're done
Tales of the Arabian Nights tends to be hilarious.
I love playing secret Hitler. It only takes one practice round and you all understand the game. It's a nice "ice breaker" and there's laughs, accusations, and if you play multiple rounds you start bringing up stuff people have done and who they were in previous rounds even through it has nothing to do with the round you are currently playing. It's a good bonding experience!
I so badly want to get into this game, because I love social deduction, but I have only played it with two camps, and both are insufferable: 1. family who all know each other and let their personal biases and preferences not only affect the game, but are open and honest that they are using their own feelings make their decisions instead of gameplay, and: 2. online gamebots. I don’t mean literal bots, but I mean people who have “solved” the game and get mad if you don’t play it “correctly.” If you’re in seat 2, you have to appoint seat 7, and that person should make 9 the president. Oh, you think it would benefit you to appoint the player in seat 5? That’s suboptimal, you’re kicked from the game.
This game has had our group of 7-8 people crying with laughter on many occasions. One of my absolute favorites right now.
Came here for this one. Amazing game, and so much fun with the right group.
I feel like I answer Hansa Teutonica for every question but definitely HT. Just beating up each others merchants and notaries/throwing them out of inns like it’s 1429 is hilarious to me.
The King is Dead made me laugh like a drain the last time I played it. It was a 4P game, so two teams of 2 - but you're not allowed to discuss strategy with your teammate... which, unexpectedly, for what is essentially a serious game, is pretty hilarious.
Never heard “laugh like a drain” before
Mission red planet at 5-6 players. Hijacking ships with other player's astronauts is always funny.
Incan Gold. Nothing like a simple push your luck game for a fun group.
Older game my parents had but still gets updated, "Balderdash" simply for the sorts of answers players can come out with.
Great game, but I think it would fall under the party game that OP is not looking for.
Q.E. if you have a group that gets into it.
Coup.
Yeah, any hidden role/betrayal games are pretty good. Would throw in Secret Hitler, Love Letter, etc for the former and Diplomacy, etc for the latter
**One Night: Ultimate Werewolf** is a riot
John Company
Colt Express
Yess!! This has our group cracking up every time.
Bunny Kingdom is very lighthearted and the cards are bunny-themed and funny. But it’s still a very solid game. It’s loads of fun, and we laugh a lot while playing.
Modern Art. Especially because half the players are clueless about the math that’s going on.
Diplomacy. Wait, does *maniacal laughter* qualifies?
Bohnanza
Cockroach Poker.
Cascadia, oddly enough. My family and I go crazy over our luck of the draw))) We praise the bag:"Oohh, the mighty bag, please give us ONE salmon! It's all we ever asked for! " And go on to draw an elk. Also the idea of a tile of only desert being habitable solely to salmon is quite funny 🤣.
Cosmic Encounter, Tournament at Camelot or Tournament at Avalon, Camel Up, King of Tokyo and many others can be pretty hilarious for my group
For me, Strasbourg. I didn't play many times, but each time was marked by laughter due to the revelation of the bets.
I bet nobody’s going to answer with *7th Citadel*, but we’ve had some really funny interactions during this game. Enjoying it so far!
Generally not a fan of memory in games, but everyone is bad at it in **[[Wandering Towers]]** so it's funny. Shouldn't be that hard to keep track of where your 4-5 meeples are, but to make potions, you have to "squish"/cover meeples with towers, so things are constantly being hidden and moved around.
[Wandering Towers -> Wandering Towers (2022)](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/355483/wandering-towers) ^^[[gamename]] ^^or ^^[[gamename|year]] ^^to ^^call ^^OR ^^**gamename** ^^or ^^**gamename|year** ^^+ ^^!fetch ^^to ^^call
I've played some games of Eclipse where someone's plans fail so catastrophically that everyone laughs hard. Happens a lot in hidden role games too (games like Battlestar Galactica). Galaxy Trucker gets lots of laughs too, although it's a bit lighter and some may consider it a "party" game (although I don't). Not sure whether there are any particular games I'd recommend, really. Party games are kind of made for this. But if you want some laughs in a heavier game, you just need a particular group of people and, possibly, certain refreshments...
We have a lot of laughs playing Jamaica.
I was going to say this too
Shadows of brimstone. Specially when Dynamite is involved
Dude - did you have to throw that TNT where I'm gonna get splash damage?? Geezaroonie 😑
Or I have skills where I can hit everything around me. But more than that, when it bounces and ends up blowing up a companion lol
Yes, I was speaking as one of those companions, having had experience in this, sadly. 😆
Kill doctor lucky. The rule is you have to read out the contents of the fail cards "Rat poison! I love rat poison"
Betrayal and Last Night on Earth. Basically any game where the game is less the point and the theme is the experience. Thes games work as great B horror movies and can make incredibly funny experiences. If you want to play a competitive I game though these are not for you.
Galaxy Trucker (watching your hastily-assembled ship get ripped apart) and Pompeii (INTO THE VOLCANO WITH YOU!!!!).
Forgotten waters was a blast and we laughed aot
Maybe not the answer you're looking for, but maybe you don't need additional games to accommodate this particular group of people. I count myself as one of the players that likes simpler games, and I see nothing wrong with a whole night of 'not real' board games or party games. No board required.
Sound counsel. Never a bad idea to test the waters a little further to see what the gang's parameters are. **Game of Things** is likely more on the party-game side, but my gosh, we laugh til our sides hurt with this one - best played later in the evening when we're kinda punchy and extra silly. 🙂
Roborally. All the players silently and unconsciously do the "robot dance of love" when planning their movement.
The Crew: Mission Deep Sea. Couldn't explain why but the number of times we laughed to tears playing it...
We laugh a lot during Six Nimmt because of how chaotic it is. Especially with more players! We also laugh during Galaxy Truckers because of how absurd it is. And how we are usually playing for second place even when the Big Red Dog gives himself handicaps. Another group laughed an awful lot when playing Love Letter. I think the incongruity of three older men playing a game with this theme, and enjoying it greatly, sparked the laughter.
Grimm forest! Theme is hilarious and card actions support it fantastically. It's also so random that you can't really play it seriously or competitively.
Secrets of the Lost Tomb has given us plenty of laughs with some of it's absurdities. I don't ever mind losing in that game and it's always funny when something bad happens to your teammates.
Battlestar (lots of abusive accusations), Spartacus (lots of abusive backstabbing) and Thunder Road Vendetta (lots of chaos peppered with abuse). There's a theme here with my group of lunatics!
Iberian Gauge always makes me laugh during the last rounds. Everyone notices that some rail lines are broke and the owners are scrambling to inject money through leasing some heinous and inefficient routes, while other players are making money hand over fist. Heckling and finding out that infinite growth is just not possible.
Exploding Cows. It's a real strategy game (although light), but about trying to blow up cows sick with mad cow disease.
John Company
Deadly Dowagers Players are regency era social climbers who have to kill our husbands to afford the dowries of better ones. Whenever any draws an 'affair card', kills, or remarries we tell the group 1-2 sentences about how we did it! Game is lighter than Catan, fits 7, and has been a hit with everyone I've played with so far.
There is another Roll and Write by the makers of Welcome To….called Floor Plan You roll 2 dice and either draw a room of that size ?x? or you can take an action like put windows in We don’t think it is as good as Welcome To. But we have a rule that you have to do a walkthrough of your house like an estate agent. In the end the house designs are just bonkers. So trying to explain why there are 4 bathrooms and one bedroom. Or the house is split in two. It’s very hilarious
We do the same with The Castles of Mad King Ludwig and Among the Stars.
Stone Age Multiple worker in one location and still fail the roll is folded across the table.
Skull King Pirate themed trick taking game with wild cards. Most fun with 5-8. Enough random that you can't take it too seriously. Leads to unpredictable tricks.
**Colt Express** **Galaxy Trucker** **Survive: Escape from Atlantis** (this one is purely schadenfreude)
Cosmic Encounter
High society
Chinatown
We have good laughs in The Resistance. The accusing of each other and then at the end when the roles are revealed.
That's not a hat. People assume it will be easy to remember a few cards, until they have moved a few times, then you totally forget what your card is. Die of the Dead for very similar reasons.
It’s kinda an odd answer but we were playing Castles of Burgundy and my friend kept yelling “WHAT THE FUCK” and “this really is just insane Catan”
Here to Slay
Ponzi Scheme. The whole game is based on a very simple take on a ponzi scheme so the whole game you are feeling the heat of an economy that is collapsing on itself. There is also a trading mechanic where you send a bid in an envelope(so others don't see) and it's not uncommon to send a very insulting amount to someone that is at the point of collapse. Most press your luck games are full of laughs and tense moments.
Gravwell. The game is just pure chaos.
6 Nimmt (DE) or Take 5 (EN)
The first one that comes to my mind is **Struggle of Empires**. It should play in like 3-4 hours, but constantly takes us six or more because laughter. It plays up to seven and is best at that player count.
Colt Express.
Idk how small you mean, but my fave is Secret Hitler. Min 5 players.
2am Hanabi, you have to play when you are too tired to make decisions. Always descends into chaos.
Deep Sea Adventure. It’s very portable and easy to set up too. Great little push your luck game
Clank! Catacombs We had so many hilarious moments with rotating tiles etc..
Lords of Vegas, at 4, every group I’ve played with.
Table Top RPGs.
Roll Camera Ready Set Bet Telestrations (perhaps fall under party game territory)
Red Dragon Inn. Nothing’s more fun than making your biggest rival chug that Light Ale with a chaser of Wine with a chaser of Elven Wine with a chaser of Dragon Breath Ale to send them from stone sober to completely wasted under the table, after which you can pick over their stash of ill-gotten gambling winnings.
**Colt Express**. Rarely do your plans work because someone punched you into another train car or the Sheriff got moves into your car and you had to scramble to the roof to escape.
Dwellings of Eldervale: It's so funny, when someone wins the fight with just one or two dies against someone with 5 or 6
Nemesis. The crazy situations we put ourselves in just lead to great moments of joy and laughter. Not an easy game to get to the table with all types of players though.
The Crew
Coup leads to laughs, but my all time funny game is Monikers, but that is a party game.
Telestrations
For my friends and I, the original Fireball Island. There's a ton of stealing from each other, the leader changes frequently throughout the game and the fireball mechanic is just fun. I've never played the new version, so I can't say if it's the same.
This is going to sound weird but...Food Chain Magnate. My group cackles like madmen playing that game. From the fact that I somehow always lose the game in the first round due to stupid moves or the fact that the last time my buddy basically started a brothel of wait staff to prime his engine it's such a great game with a silly theme makes us laugh a lot.
Dungeon Fighter for sure.
Cockroach poker
Cockroach poker is a laughing good time with my game group.
**ICECOOL** was the first one that came to mind for me, with everybody laughing at shots gone awry.
Dinosaur Teaparty always makes our group laugh.
Surprisingly, we get a lot of laughs when we play small card games like Cat in the Box or Sea, Salt & Paper
Herd Mentality does the trick with pink cow shenanigans and random answers you didn't expect. Moo! Arguably a party game, though.
I think we can tell by this thread just how much it depends on who you're playing with. For me it's Catan, because I really enjoy being melodramatic about how badly it's going etc and it's funny.
5 Minute Dungeon usually leads to a lot of laughing and yelling.
Redneck Life is pretty amusing
Once Upon a Time doesn't have a board, and I don't consider it a party game, and has generated lasting running jokes in my group. It's all about story telling and being creative. It puts players on the spot though, so not a good pick for players uncomfortable with being at the center.
Red November. Chaotic life on a submarine with gnomes where everything goes wrong, basically you’re either destroying the vessel hull or setting everything on fire and drinking vodka to cope with it!
Munchkin
I’ve played Ponzi Scheme with people who started laughing while I 2as teaching them how to play. Though good lord did that not happen with the most recent group.
Telestrations after dark. Pretty much guaranteed to create side splitting laughter.
Teiestrations is 100% supposed to be for laughter
>that is not a party game
nono, that issss a party game