Retiring Early Together: What Are We Going to Do All Day? Part 2

In part one of Retiring Early Together: What Are We Going to Do All Day? I focused on a lot of games that Krissy and I love to play with just the two of us, although we often play them with friends and family too.

One of the things I am very nervous about with going full-time is leaving our friends. I know we will remain friends and be in contact all the time, but I will miss playing games and watching Survivor together. These two things weigh a lot on my heart.

We have started looking at ways to play some of our favorite games together online and also through FaceTime. We can always watch Survivor together but apart, and I know the conversations will continue no matter where we are physically. But none of that completely replaces the tactile part of sitting around a table and playing games together.

I am sure we will meet new friends along the way. I also know that games will help us break through that friendship barrier. I love how games guide conversation and can bring people who are completely different together.

Over the years, games have become one of our favorite ways to spend time with friends and family. Some of our favorites are competitive, some are cooperative, some take hours, and others are quick games we pull out while we're waiting for dinner. More importantly, they give everyone something to do while conversation happens naturally around the table.

So, if you're looking for games to play with friends, family, or people you're still getting to know, these are some of our favorites.

Our Favorite Games for Different Kinds of Game Nights

If you don't want to read about every game we own—and there are a lot of them—here's the quick version:

For getting to know people: Codenames, Ticket to Ride, Trekking the National Parks, Wits & Wagers

For lots of laughing: Telestrations, Nerds, Wits & Wagers

For working together: Pandemic, MicroMacro: Crime City

For something quick and easy: Blink, Roll Out Blow Out, Skip-Bo, Yahtzee

For a long-term game night: My City, Pandemic Legacy

For when you apparently have six hours to kill: Bear Mountain Camping Adventure

Now, for the details...

Ticket to Ride

Ticket to Ride is a competitive game where players draw cards and travel by train around the United States. Players can play defensively or offensively, but you don't know the true destinations of the other players.

Besides the game itself, it also leads to conversations about where people want to travel and how they like to travel. Ticket to Ride is nice because it can be slower paced and no one needs to feel rushed.

Trekking the National Parks

Trekking the National Parks is a game that combines some of what we love about Ticket to Ride and PARKS, which I talked about in part one of this post. Players travel around the United States and visit National Parks. You can visit parks or occupy parks in a more defensive style of play.

Just like Ticket to Ride, it leads to lots of conversations about what parks people have seen and which ones they want to see. For us, that's pretty much a guaranteed conversation starter.

Nertz: Our Loud Family Favorite

Nertz is a game my family has played forever. It is basically competitive solitaire. Each player has their own deck of cards with a different design on the back. You play cards personally in front of you while also competing for the same numerical suit piles in the middle of the table.

Each round is played until one person gets rid of their built pile and yells, "NERTZ!" Cards left in a player's pile count against them, while cards played in the middle count positively. You keep playing rounds until someone gets 100 points.

This game often gets very loud and physical in my family. In fact, there may have been some accidental punching between Krissy and my brother one time.

There really isn't a limit to how many people can play Nertz. We have played with just three people, but we have also played with as many as 12 when we worked at a Girl Scout camp!

Yahtzee

Yahtzee is a dice game where you roll dice and fill out a scorecard with different combinations to earn points. Each turn, players get to roll the dice up to three times and can save dice between rolls to try to make the combination they need.

Once everyone has filled out all the lines on the score sheet, the game is over and all the points are added up.

Yahtzee is nice because most people already know how to play and usually just need a little reminding. That makes it an easy game to pull out with a group without spending half the night explaining rules.

My City: A Game for a Regular Game Night

My City is a progressive game. There are chapters and sessions, and the game evolves over time. Sometimes these games just feel wrong because you may have to add stickers, tear up cards, or throw pieces away. This game is not for the faint of heart!

It took us and our friends the Campbells almost three months to finish. The game is a great way to start learning other people's strategies and how they think. Progressive games are also fun to turn into a weekly game night.

Pandemic: A Cooperative Game for Friends

Pandemic has a single-play option and a progressive/legacy option like My City. In this game, the group is trying to save the world from a pandemic. It has lots of rules and takes some time to learn, but it is a lot of fun.

I especially love that the whole group is trying to beat the game instead of competing against each other.

We were playing Pandemic Legacy with our friends the Adamsons and were about halfway through when COVID happened. For a bit, we thought we had caused COVID because we had not defeated the game and got quarantined halfway through.

We have not picked the game back up since.

Maybe we shouldn't.

Blokus

There are two forms of this game: regular and 3D. Each player has different block formations and is trying to connect their blocks and get rid of them while also blocking the other players.

The game is completely different each time depending on how everyone approaches their play. This is another game where it is interesting to see how different people think.

We Have Goats

We bought We Have Goats through Kickstarter. In this game, you are trying to get all your goats to the opposite side of the board while blocking the other players from doing the same.

The game consists of four groups of four goats in different colors, cards, and a board. It is a lot of fun, and we always enjoy trying games that are a little different.

Telestrations: One of Our Favorite Games for Laughing

Telestrations is a board game based on the old kids' game Telephone. Each player gets a card and a reusable notebook. On the first page, the player writes the item that is on the card. Then the notebook gets passed to the next player, who has to draw it. The next person has to guess what the drawing is, and so on.

At the end, you reveal everything and find out whether the original topic survived being passed around the table.

I don't know about you, but I am not the best at drawing, especially when I have to do it fast. It is hilarious to see how much these things get altered along the way.

There are no points. It is just for fun.

Sequence

Sequence is a combination of a board game and cards. Teams are trying to get two rows of five before the other team.

This game involves a lot of luck and nonverbal communication with your partner. It is very easy to learn but still extremely fun, and it is nice to play with people of all ages.

Phase 10

Phase 10 is a card game where each player is trying to get through 10 phases made up of different sets and runs. A player only moves to the next phase after completing the one before it, so everyone can be on different phases at the same time.

Krissy is not a big fan of this game because she is often a phase behind.

We just got a new edition of the game called Phase 10 Flip, where cards can be flipped over and change colors in the middle of play. This adds an extra challenge—and extra frustration.

Wits & Wagers: A Great Conversation Game

This is a fun fact-driven game. A question is asked that has a numerical answer. Players guess the answer and then wager on which guess they think is correct.

This game is so much fun and full of laughs. You do not need to actually know the answers to win because you can still win by betting on the right person.

The useless knowledge is very interesting and leads to lots of fun conversations, which is one of the reasons I think it works so well with a group.

Blink: A Quick Game to Play With Friends

Blink is a speed-matching game. Players try to get rid of their cards by matching shapes, numbers, or colors. It is kind of like the fast version of SET.

The speed part has gotten harder with age.

MicroMacro: Crime City – Full House

This is a Where's Waldo-type game where everyone works together to find the culprit of a crime throughout a huge, busy, black-and-white scene of a city.

A magnifying glass is provided to help the team find the culprit. Each time you find them, it leads you to another location and another part of the story.

I love these games because everyone works together. Cooperative games are especially nice when you're playing with people who don't enjoy a lot of competition.

Codenames: One of Our Favorite Games for Couples and Friends

Codenames is a fun game where you are trying to get your team to guess certain words using one-word clues.

Krissy and I kick ass at this game because we understand each other's weird way of thinking.

To make it a little harder, one of the words has an assassin behind it. If your team guesses that word, the game ends immediately.

This is a great game for learning how people—and particularly couples—interact and think. It's one of the reasons I love games so much. You can learn a surprising amount about someone just by sitting across a table from them and playing.

Roll Out Blow Out

In this game, players are trying to get all nine numbers using combinations of dice. On your turn, you roll the dice and can either take those numbers for yourself or play defense and make other players lose those numbers.

It is a fun and quick game. We often use it as a starter or warm-up before playing something longer.

Mind the Gap: A Game for Different Generations

Mind the Gap is a generational trivia game. This has been really fun to play with my family because of all the different ages.

I am very bad at trivia and especially bad at pop culture, so it is nice to depend on my family members for help. I am constantly amazed by the random knowledge my son, nieces, and nephews have acquired over the years.

Bear Mountain Camping Adventure

This is another game we got through Kickstarter and another game that comes with a full book of rules explaining how to play.

We have only had time to play it once. It was a lot of fun, but it took us six hours because of all the little idiosyncrasies!

Players compete to get to different campgrounds higher up a mountain while getting bigger and better RVs along the way and doing different camping activities.

It is super fun, and I cannot wait to play it again.

Rummikub

Rummikub is a tile game that operates a lot like rummy. Once a player initially goes down with a certain number of points, they can start playing off the tiles already on the table.

This is where the game can get a little crazy—especially when a player moves all the tiles around and then realizes they don't actually have a play, and no one knows how to put everything back.

I know someone who might do this...

Krissy.

Did I say that?

Rummikub is an older game that never gets old. Gotta love the classics!

Skip-Bo: An Easy Game for Friends and Family

Skip-Bo is a card game where players are trying to get rid of their cards by playing them in numerical order. This is another Freirose favorite and is pretty easy to play.

We play this on cruises a lot with our friends. It is another good warm-up game or something we can play quickly before something else starts.

Can Games Help Us Make Friends on the Road?

I hope we meet people along the way who like to play games. I really do think games will be one of the ways we meet people and turn strangers into friends.

Sitting down with someone new and simply trying to have a conversation can sometimes feel awkward. Put a game between everyone and suddenly you have something to talk about, laugh about, compete over, or work together to accomplish. The conversation happens without anyone having to force it.

Maybe someday one of these games will be sitting on the table at a campground with people we haven't even met yet.

And if not, then Krissy will just be stuck getting beat all the time.

What fun is that for either of us?

What games do you like to play with friends? Which ones do you think are the best for getting to know people?

Love to play and play to live,

Anne