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There’s a First Time For Everything Learning to play online board games isn’t hard, but it can feel overwhelming when you don’t know where to start. This is a quick intro to playing a game on one of the biggest and best on-line board game sites, Board Game Arena (BGA). If you join a board gaming group (like our meetup), people often learn new board games every time they go to a meeting. Someone will suggest a game, and if you don’t know it already and would like to learn it, they will usually explain it while getting the game started. Some games are easy to explain – the 6 nimmt! game we’ll talk about here only takes a couple of minutes to explain – while other more complicated games take a while. ...

Don’t Panic About the Jargon Ever joined a game night and felt like everyone was speaking in code? “This is a great engine-builder with some worker placement, but watch out for analysis paralysis!” If just getting started and wondering what any of that meant, you’re definitely not alone. The good news? Board game terminology isn’t as intimidating as it sounds. Most of these terms developed naturally as players needed ways to describe the clever mechanics and experiences that make modern games so engaging. Think of it like learning the vocabulary for any hobby you care about – once you know the basics, everything starts making much more sense. ...

What If Game Night Was the Answer All Along? Suddenly, making friends seems harder than learning the rules to Twilight Imperium. If you’ve ever moved to a new city and then realized your closest adult relationship is with your barista, you’re definitely not alone. Er, sorry. You are alone, but you can do something about that. Here’s what nobody warns you about adulthood: making friends gets really hard after college. It’s genuinely difficult in ways that would make your teenage self laugh. But it’s not just you – it’s actually a widespread problem that researchers call the “friendship recession.” ...

When BoardGameArena goes down (it happens!), here are some excellent alternatives. All of these are free to play, browser-based (no download), and no login required for guests—someone creates a “room” and shares a link or code. Recommended Sites Website Game Type Players Description Netgames.io Social Deduction Hub 5–20+ A polished interface for social deduction hits. Includes Secret Hitler, Avalon, One Night Ultimate Werewolf, Spyfall, and Codewords (Codenames clone). No setup required; just share the room code. Codenames.game Team Word Game 4–8+ The official online version of Codenames. Two teams compete to contact all their agents first by guessing words from one-word clues. Excellent for teams. Gartic Phone Drawing / Party 4–14+ The “Telephone” game but with drawings. Player A writes a prompt, Player B draws it, Player C describes the drawing, and so on. Hilarious results and perfect for Zoom laughter. Longwave Social / Team 2–10+ A web implementation of the board game Wavelength. Teams try to guess where a hidden target lies on a spectrum (e.g., “Hot” to “Cold”) based on a psychic’s clue (e.g., “Coffee”). PlayingCards.io Card Game Sandbox 1–6+ A virtual tabletop that moves anything you drag. Comes with pre-made rooms for Crazy Eights, Hearts, Go Fish, and Cribbage, or you can build custom games. Colonist.io Strategy 1–4 A clean, fast clone of Settlers of Catan. Gather resources, build roads/settlements, and trade with other players. Base game is free for 4 players. OneWord.games Co-op Word Game 3–∞ A web version of Just One. Everyone writes one-word clues to help the guesser find the mystery word. If clues are identical, they’re deleted! World Of Card Games Card Games 1–6 Many different card games including Hearts, Spades, Euchre, Gin Rummy, and more. Gidd.io Variety Hub 2–20 A suite of simple games including Yatzy, Uno (Crazy Eights), and GeoClash (Geography guessing). Handles up to 20 players smoothly. JigsawPuzzles.io Co-op Puzzle 1–10 Collaborative real-time jigsaw puzzles. You can see everyone’s mouse cursors moving pieces around. Very chill and great for chatting while playing. Fake Artist Online Drawing / Deduction 5–10 Based on “A Fake Artist Goes to New York.” Everyone draws one line to contribute to a picture, but the “Fake Artist” doesn’t know the topic and tries to blend in. Tips for Hosting Login: For most of these sites, only the person creating the room might need a login (often not even them), but guests definitely do not. ...