We had our whole immediate family together over Christmas. That can mean a lot of time spent cooped up and you need things to pass the time. In my house we have not played many board games since the kids were young, but my sister's kids are younger and they are quite into them. We actually did not turn the TV on at all for Christmas day. Here are some of the games we played.

Pandemic

My brother-in-law got Pandemic as a Christmas present. It is interesting as players need to cooperate against the game rather than each other. The board is a map of the world and drawing cards determines where diseases will break out. Each played gets a random ability such as being able to transport others directly where needed or to speed up research. You collect some cards to build labs whilst others help the diseases spread. Sometimes a card will come up that speeds up the spread.

You have to work on a strategy to find cures before the cards run out. When I played we made it just in time. I think it took about an hour to play. It can get quite tense.

This all seems quite topical given recent events. You can adjust the difficulty by changing how many of certain cards are used. There are different versions of the game plus expansion packs to add variety. There are lots of small game pieces, so you need to be careful not to lose them or get them picked up by pets and small children.

Ticket to Ride

I know Ticket to Ride is pretty popular, but I had not played it before. We played a mini version that is set in London. It is all about claiming train routes by placing your carriages along the lines. You need to pick up appropriate cards to do this. This was a simpler game, but good fun. Again, there are lots of different versions out there.

Herd Mentality

Herd Mentality is something different to those above. You get cards with questions and the aim is to pick an answer that others will have chosen as the most popular one wins you a token. That means getting into the other players' heads a bit and not necessarily going with what would be obvious to you. This may be harder when you have a range of ages or if you do not know the others so well. We had a question "Name a band beginning with R". A certain person will get teased for a while for writing down Right Said Fred. They did not win with that. It is a good party game as it will raise some smiles and spark some debate about which answers are actually the same. The game comes with cards, counters for scoring, note pads and a rubber cow that goes to the player who was the odd one out so they cannot score until they can pass it on. You could really play it without all those if you have a list of questions you can use.

Newmarket

This is one you can play with regular playing cards and is a family tradition. It involves some gambling, but we play with chocolates. You use four cards (king, queen, jack, ace of different suits) from another pack which represent the 'horses' (as in Newmarket racecourse) and you bet your sweets on those. Then you have to play cards in a run started by one of the players and hope you can play a horse to claim the winnings. The first person to play all their cards can claim a general prize pot. I think even my mother has played it since she was young, so it has gone down the generations.

So what games are you enjoying? I know people who play board games regularly. There are board game cafes and I have seen them in pubs too. I can see the attraction as a social activity and perhaps I will have to look into playing again some time soon.