👈🏻 Back to Low-Medium Complexity
Looking for a 5-player game that is accessible and light on rules but still has meaningful strategy? Here are our recommendations.
⭐️ Top Picks
Our top recommendations in this category, and games that we personally own to fill this niche.
Ticket to Ride
🟢 Ryan’s #35 All-Time 🔴 Daniel’s #29 All-Time
Summary: Collect cards to build your railroad across the United States, connecting cities to complete your destination tickets.
You Might Like If… you enjoy collecting cards to play sets and want a game that is a proven modern classic with a great balance of player interaction and easy-going gameplay with room for experienced players to enjoy pushing their luck.
7 Wonders: Architects
Summary: Race to build your wonder and collect points by selecting either of the cards next to you, or testing you luck with a blind draw from the deck.
You Might Like If… you enjoy simple games that have some nice strategic decisions and want a game that covers a really wide player count, is fun across the spectrum of non-gamer to heavy gamer, and plays in half hour.
Cartographers
🟢 Ryan’s #33 All-Time
Summary: Fit shapes of various terrains into your map, doing your best to fill in space efficiently while also meeting the scoring conditions for that game.
You Might Like If… you enjoy spatial puzzles (think Tetris) and want a game that plays great across a broad range of players with a nice amount of variety from game to game with randomized objectives.
Fantasy Realms
🟢 Ryan’s #45 All-Time 🔴 Daniel’s #39 All-Time
Summary: Build the greatest fantasy kingdom by constructing the best hand of seven cards.
You Might Like If… you enjoy games with card combos and interactions like Magic: The Gathering or Dominion, and are looking for a quick and easy-to-teach game that works well across a wide range of player counts.
SCOUT
🟢 Ryan’s #49 All-Time
Summary: Try to be the first to get rid of all your cards by playing stronger sets and finding the right time to scout other players’ cards — however, you can never change the order of the cards in your hand!
You Might Like If… you enjoy traditional card games where you are managing a hand to try to play all your cards but want a game that puts a new twist on the genre that leads to some really fascinating new decisions.
Las Vegas Royale
🟢 Ryan’s #39 All-Time
Summary: Roll and place dice as you try to win the payouts from various casinos. The “Royale” version of this classic game adds some new twists and variability with casino abilities.
You Might Like If… you enjoy rolling dice and want an interactive game with a lot of excitement and laughter as players fight over control of the different casinos. Has the flexibility to keep really simple with the base rules or spice things up with the “Royale” casino abilities.
👍 Honorable Mentions
Games that missed being top picks, but that we still think are great choices for a lot of people.
Horrified
Summary: Work as a team to try to stop the classic movie monsters that are terrorizing the town.
You Might Like If… you enjoy cooperative games and want an accessible one with a fun theme that has nice replay value since you use a random combination of monsters in each game.
Welcome to the Moon
🟢 Ryan’s #47 All-Time 🔴 Daniel’s #45 All-Time
Summary: Strategically place numbers and activate abilities across eight unique boards in this flip-and-write game that has you traveling from earth to the moon.
You Might Like If… you enjoy working on your own puzzle and trying to plan ahead and want a game that has a variety of maps with different twists to keep the game fresh. Also includes a campaign mode if you can consistently gather the same group.
Tiny Towns
Summary: Plan well as you puzzle each round’s selected resource into your grid, trying to create patterns to construct buildings.
You Might Like If… you enjoy puzzle games that require careful planning and want a game that is easy to teach, covers a wide player range, and has almost no downtime since everyone places a resource on every player’s turn.
Lovecraft Letter
Summary: Use clever deduction and guesswork to be the last player in each round in this Lovecraftian variant of the popular game Love Letter.
You Might Like If… you enjoyed Love Letter but are looking for a little bit more depth. Some ambiguities in the rulebook make this hard to fully recommend, but it has replaced Love Letter in our groups and is a perfect game for closing out a game night with some light tactics and laughter.
King of Tokyo
Summary: Battle to the death as giant monsters with Yahtzee-like dice rolling and the acquisition of special ability cards.
You Might Like If… you enjoy dice rolling and games with some conflict and want an easy-to-teach option that plays quickly and across a wide range of player counts.
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