As the holiday season quickly approaches, we at One Eyed Jacques are thinking of some of our favorite games to play with family and friends around the table. While games are a great way to unplug from the world and enjoy time with your loved ones, it can be tricky to find games that your non-gaming family members will enjoy and learn without getting discouraged or disinterested in the process. The games listed below might be perfect for you to pick up in the coming months that your family members will love! 

We’ve focused on games in this list that are quick to learn, while their charming art styles and gameplay will have your family members coming back for more! While we love the modern classics like Catan and Ticket to Ride, we wanted to give some recommendations that you (or your family) might not have heard before. These games are tried and true games that our staff's family members have picked up quickly and come to love. We hope your family will love them too! 

#1 - Dominion

The grandfather of deckbuilders, Dominion is a great introduction to the mechanic. 2-4 players will each start with the same basic deck of 7 Coppers and 3 Estates. Players will be using their Coppers to buy more powerful cards to add to their deck. Each turn plays fast, with a clear goal of grabbing the most victory points before the end of the game. As soon as someone buys the first Province (worth a whopping 6 victory points), it becomes a race to the finish line! If the supply of Provinces dwindles to zero, the game immediately ends! Dominion includes set up guides to help you get going and the game play is quick and intuitive. Even your family members that aren’t deck building pros will get to experience the fun of a well crafted deck, and get plenty of “pop off” turns! 

 #2 - Just One 

The next game on our list, Just One, is a cooperative party game for 3-7 players. Each turn, one player will be tasked with guessing a secret word that all the other players at the table know. The other players will each write down a clue that will hopefully lead the active player to guess the correct word. For example, if the secret word was “Chocolate”, each clue might be a word like “Milk”, “Dark”, “Hot”, and so forth. However, be creative with your clues, as any duplicate clues are removed before the active player sees them. Once the clues are revealed, the active player will have ONE guess. If they get it right, the players score a point, if they get it wrong, players lose a point. 

Just One is a great choice to bring to holiday gatherings, as it's quick to play and pick up, and has other well-known games (like Taboo and Scattergories) to base your teachings off! Because it's cooperative, it's also a great low stakes choice to play with an ultra-competitive group, as few tensions can be raised when everyone is working together! 

#3 - LEGO: Monkey Palace 

LEGO: Monkey Palace is a great tactile game with surprising depth. The LEGO theme is sure to grab the attention of the kids (and the kids-at-heart) in your family. Each turn, you’ll use the pieces you’ve accumulated to build staircases onto the growing palace. For each arch you place, you’ll gain 1 monkey point, which you can spend on cards that will score you bananas (points). The cards also give you additional components to use on future turns, growing the amount of pieces you can build with.

This card mechanic really drives the game, as you’ll try to buy the best cards that come out before the other players. The game also has a gorgeous table presence, as each turn the board gets physically taller and bigger. Each game leaves you with a collaborative masterpiece to admire.

#4 - Sea Salt and Paper

A great game to take in your carry-on, Sea Salt and Paper is a lot of game in a little box! Sea Salt and Paper starts with players having no cards in their hand. During their turn, players either draw one card from a discard pile, or draw two and discard one! Some cards, like Anchors, Octopi, and Penguins, want to be kept in sets in your hand: the more you have, the more points you get. Other cards, like Crabs, Sharks & Divers, and Sailboats, want to be collected in pairs, which you can then immediately play for bonus effects (like digging through the discard pile for a card you really want, or stealing a card from another player’s hand).
The neat “catch” (see what we did there), is that as soon as a player gets 7 or more points in their hand, they can choose to end the round. They can do this immediately, after which everyone scores their points, or they can bet on a “Final Call” where each other player will get one more turn before counting their points. 

A player wins the game when either they score a set number of points (based on the player count), or if they can somehow obtain all four elusive mermaid cards at the same time! 

#5 - Cascadia 

The last game on our list, Cascadia is a puzzly, cozy game to play next to a lit fire with a mug of hot chocolate in your hand. Cascadia sees players building their own section of the Cascadia mountain range! Each turn, players will draft a tile along with the animal adjacent to it from the supply. They then place the tile and animal as they’d like on their growing board. Players are rewarded for placing tiles next to regions of the same type (i.e. Mountains, Marshes, Lakes, etc.). However, each animal also has its own placing requirements, making placement choices more interesting! 

In the beginner game, for example, bears want to be placed in pairs with no other pairs next to them, while salmon want to be placed in winding runs. Each animal has multiple different scoring cards that can be used, so each game is different! 

Another great thing about Cascadia is the included Family Mode, which can be used to take out the more complex scoring so the whole family can enjoy!