When every night can be games night

Sick of screens and don’t want to go back to Monopoly? Ed Power selects the best of the new generation of board games

You can tell board games are becoming fashionable because Hollywood is putting them in movies. In the recent Game Night, a hyper-competitive couple (Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams) get more than they bargain for when an evening of tabletop gaming takes a turn for the wacky and criminal.

Just this month, meanwhile, Amazon Studios secured the rights to Tales from the Loop, a Dungeons and Dragons-style roleplaying game about aliens invading Eighties Sweden, with Planet of the Apes director Matt Reeves producing.

Does a Dungeons and Dragons-style roleplaying game about aliens invading Eighties Sweden scream “hit”? Amazon reckons so.

Happily, and unlike in Game Night the movie, out in the real world the worst that can befall you while gaming is a heightened pulse, as someone rumbles your master strategy and condemns you to last in the pecking order.

With Game Night and Tales from the Loop sure to further raise interest in the hobby, here’s our beginners’ guide to board games.

Ticket To Ride (Days of Wonder)

In Ticket to Ride, two to six players vie to build railway lines across Gilded Age America. Designing railway infrastructure indeed sounds like a snooze with bells on.

Ticket To Ride is, in fact, highly addictive, as you will discover rolling out your steam-powered empire across the continent. There is also an Ireland and UK edition and a simplified, kid-friendly version, Ticket To Ride: First Journey.

A tablet adaptation, meanwhile, allows you try the game on Android and iOS to see if it’s your thing. Over three million copies of Ticket To Ride have been sold since 2004, making it one of the biggest hits of the modern board game era. Ideal for families.

Codenames (Czech Games)

Fancy a his ’n’ hers game night, just like in that recent Hollywood movie? (without the slapstick violence). The clear choice is Codenames in which teams attempt to guess words using simple verbal clues. It’s silly, time-filling fun.

For something a little more hardcore, consider Mysterium, where one player is a ghost attempting to communicate the circumstances of their murder to the rest of the table using illustrated cards. Spooky... and addictive.

Stuff of Legend (Plaid Hat Games)

It’s bedtime and the teddy bears and other plush toys have come out to play. With gorgeous production values, this story-telling game for kids has the players taking on the roles of stuffed toys as they try to keep their owner safe through the night.

A ‘story-book’ style board, in which each mission features a new playing area ensures longevity and the cutesy heroes will appeal to children.

Massive Darkness (Cool Mini or Not)

Games nights are increasingly common in bars, but a noisy pub isn’t the best place for putting on your thinking cap, so why not try something light and breezy, such as Massive Darkness.

In this Dungeons and Dragons-esque romp, players don the chainmail and pointy hats of warriors and wizards as they take on orcs and wandering monsters.

Probably the closest tabletop gaming comes to a video game slash ’em up in the style of League of Legends.

Guild Ball (Steamforged Games)

NFL Gridiron meets the Battle of Helm’s Deep from Lord of the Rings. Players are in charge of squads of arcane athletes drawn from medieval city guilds and competing in a game of “mob football”.

Scythe (Stonemaier Games)

It’s the early 1920s and across Central Europe military powers are waging conflict and competing for resources. To help their cause, they are able to call upon giant steamed-powered robots — ‘mechs’ — though it will take more then mere might to carry the day.

A cross between a Transformers movie and a history book about the causes of the First World War, Scythe is a game of many parts that adds up to a powerfully immersive experience.

Yes, it is challenging to get into, and is probably for hardcore gamers, but a family version — My Little Scythe — arrives next month, with the duelling mega bots replaced by cutesy animals.

Mansions of Madness: Second Edition (Fantasy Flight Games)

The baroque writings of HP Lovecraft are the backdrop to a “dungeon-crawl” caper set in a spooky house. The story is narrated via an accompanying app — which tells you where to place new monsters as they arrive — and outlines the many twists in the tale.

After dark, with the lights dimmed, it adds up to a genuinely creepy experience and, because the app is essentially running the game, you can play on your own!

Star Wars: Imperial Assault (Fantasy Flight Games)

There are more Star Wars games than you can shake a lightsaber at and newcomers may not be sure where to jump in.

This adventure game in which players take on the nefarious Galactic Empire is a rollicking starting point. Just like Mansions of Madness, an accompanying app plays the “dungeon master”, guiding you through the story.

Escape The Dark Castle (Themeborne)

Some games require hours simply to set up on the table, let alone play all the way through, but if you’ve only limited time to spare, Escape The Dark Castle is a fantastic diversion. You’re ready to go in five minutes and the game plays in under half an hour.

You and up to five friends are adventurers escaping a haunted citadel. To reach the exit you must negotiate 15 random rooms, rolling dice and fending off ghouls and demons. A hoot, and over in less time than it takes to change a bulb.

This War Of Mine (Awaken Realms)

This War Of Mine started as a survival video game drawing on the experiences of survivors of the Siege of Sarajevo. It wasn’t much fun and that was the point, as it sought to educate the player on the grim, tedious reality of conflict.

The same sensibility is carried into this gripping board game, which again goes to lengths to communicate the horrors of modern war, but it’s also an absorbing puzzle, as you try to keep your characters alive, often by any means necessary, until a ceasefire.

An alternative is Twilight Struggle, a two -player strategy game that doubles as a potted history of American-Russian tensions through the 20th century.

Just the thing to put you in the mood as you sit down to the evening news.