Most of the time when I set out to play a board game, the setting is very specific: I usually want to play in the comfort of my own home or potentially a friend’s home. Not often do I veer from that preference, but sometimes I do feel like venturing out into the world and playing games in different locations. But what locations are fit for board games? For a while it felt like if it wasn’t in a house, it wasn’t going to happen, but recently I’ve been finding different locations cropping up out in the real world where board games aren’t just accepted, but encouraged. Here is a list of the 5 types of locations that are becoming “board game friendly”.
Bars/Breweries
Back in college I remember discovering that one of my favorite pastimes was hanging out with my friends, having a few drinks, and playing board games. At 25 this preference hasn’t changed much- I find myself spending plenty of days with friends playing games with a few beers or glasses of wine. I’ve always considered this type of activity more relaxed than the active, lively crowds that I join when I go out to a bar.
Surprisingly enough, there are places across the country combining these two seemingly different activities. Suddenly there are bars out there that you can play board games in. Some of them you can bring your own, others rent them out to you for use while you drink and chat with friends. I know of a few in the Washington D.C. area near me (my favorite is a place called Board Room), but from a simple Google search you can find locations in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles that have the same theme.
Breweries fall into the same category- while they are usually more laid back than your average bar, the main purpose for going to a brewery is to have a few drinks and enjoy yourself with friends. Adding board games into the mix is slowly becoming more popular, with multiple breweries popping up with board game themes and outdoor areas being set up to play games that you bring with you. Breweries are taking advantage of the trend by inserting themselves into the gaming lifestyle- check out an interesting article about the phenomena by the Huffington Post.
Conventions
While comic books, anime, and TV shows still control the lion’s share of the conventions out there, board games have been able to find a slice of the pie in many of the more popular “cons” scattered across the US. Gaming tournaments, booths, and prizes are staples of almost all conventions that you would go to, and conventions tailored specifically to board games are also becoming more prevalent. A list of board game cons can be found on Board Game Geek, highlighting some of the best places to check out new/developing games in the market.
Board Game Shops
Shops dedicated to selling board games have been around for a while. In fact, it might be that they are less common now than they were before the internet took some of the board game sales from the “mom and pop”-type shops. Still, most areas have at least one local gaming store, which can include anything from card games to miniatures to traditional board games as well. These game stores have to find ways to attract old and new customers, and board game nights/board game tournaments are a big pull for weeknights and weekends.
Cafes
This new trend is the most fascinating to me- the Atlantic posted an article back in 2014 about How Board Games Conquered Cafes, and I tend to agree with them based on what I’ve seen. The focus of the article is a lot on families enjoying board games in coffee shops and cafes as a cheap way to get out of the house, enjoy some time with the kids, and play some games that everyone enjoys. That’s not the only option though, as the cafes are also great places for after-school activities of teens or a way to unwind for adults who spend their day sitting at a desk typing on a computer.
Based on what I’ve seen from personal experience, I can certainly verify that board games are making their way out into the world more often as time goes by. I always stress the social aspect of gaming, so seeing more and more location for playing board games crop up is very encouraging. That being said… I don’t expect game night at home to be going away any time soon.
dedicate your troops to an invasion is a crucial part of the game. You gain troops each turn, but after every turn the enemy has a chance at improving their ultimate weapon, so you can’t sit around and stockpile troops for too long. Sans Allies is also similar to the game 
trying to play the game. This meant that by the time I actually started playing the Limited War version of the game, I only had to check the rules a few times for my first play through. When I upgraded to Total War for my second play-through, I felt comfortable enough with the Limited War rules that I only checked the rules for Total War additions. Ultimately I’ve played through the game four times in total, and feel like I know pretty much everything I need to play the game moving forward.
That’s why when my girlfriend got me The Resistance (The Dystopian Universe) for my birthday, I was immediately drawn to it. While the same level of story detail isn’t the same as in books, movies, or games, the theme adds a lot of character to a cool collaborative card-b
eveal themselves to each other. This means that the spies know each other, but nobody from the resistance knows who is a spy and who’s not. The leader of the round then chooses a team of people from the whole group to go on the first mission (they can interrogate them beforehand) and the entire group votes on if they approve the choices. Once a team has been chosen or approved, they secretly play either a Success or Fail card. If anyone chooses a fail option, the mission fails and the spies get closer to victory. However, if nobody sabotages the mission, then it is a success and the Resistance moves closer to winning. A new leader is chosen, and the following rounds follow the same pattern until one team has three victories.
without even going to the fifth round. Because the spies know each other, they can try and signal each other to choose if they are going to pass or fail for a mission, as well as supporting the other spies when they are chosen for a mission. You have to be much more attentive when you are not a spy because if you miss something you will most lik
Cooperative board/card games have been becoming more popular over the past few years, with games such as Pandemic becoming more common for mass consumption. Cooperative games can have varying types and nuances to how they’re played, but the major theme is that rather than playing against each other, you play together against the game as a common enemy. Usually this involves completing some type of objective in order to win, while not meeting the objective will cause you to lose. Hanabi is a cooperative card game that actually goes by a different objective- work together to earn as many points as possible, with a point scale giving your group a grade at the end of the game. There aren’t any official winners or losers, but the competitive nature of the game is still tough to beat as you attempt to get a perfect score.
olors of fireworks, all with numbered cards of 1-5, and the objective is to play all five of each color before the time runs out. The big catch in this game is that instead of players looking at their own cards, they face the cards outwards so that all players can see the cards except for the person holding them. Rather than simply telling a player which card to play, the other players have to provide hints about how many of a certain color or number is in the player’s hand. A player can also choose to play one of the cards in his/her hand; if they chose a card that chronologically matches what’s already been played, the card is added to the stack of the card’s color. Otherwise, the card is discarded. You also have a certain number of clues that you can give, which can be increased by a player intentionally discarding a card. The game ends when there are no more cards to use, and then points are tallied based on what cards were played by the end of the game.
ct a player’s choice to play or discard cards. Memorization is also a key factor in the game, because you need to remember where each card is based on the clues you are given. The game is a lot of fun right off the bat as you are gathering information about your hand, and as more cards are played it is more difficult to play the cards in the correct order. There are also fewer of the higher value cards in the deck, so if you accidentally discard a 5 you can’t get a perfect score because there is only 5 card for each color available. All of this combines strategy combines into a game of subtle hints, careful decision making, and surprising amounts of tension whenever a card is played.
but inside there are 30 road cards that create a fairly engaging game 
when spread out. Created by a company called Perplext, Bus focused on players navigating b
The Boardwalk Games 