How to do gateway game

The premise of the game consists of players taking turns drafting colored tiles from their suppliers and placing them on their player board. Extra points are scored for specific patterns and completing sets with your tiles. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins. Azul brings an air of simplicity, elegance, and beauty, making it a great game to play on those nights you just want to relax and is perfecting for introducing new players.

King of Tokyo is a great board game that is easy to learn and fun to play! The name does a great job of explaining the premise of the board game, as each player must fight to become the one and only King of Tokyo. Also, if you love mutant monsters, gigantic robots, and strange aliens, then you will sure love this game!

You will get to play as one of these monsters, robots, or aliens. Gameplay consists of rolling six dice, with symbols showing a 1, 2, or 3 Victory Points, Energy, Heal, or Attack. Players then must decide to keep or discard each die in order to win victory points, gain energy, restore health, or attack other players. Remember, you are working towards being the one and only King of Tokyo. In order to win the game, one must either destroy Tokyo by accumulating 20 victory points, or be the only surviving monster once the fighting has ended.

King of Tokyo is a pretty simple to play game for players that can be played in about 30 minutes. Wingspan is probably the most well known engine building game to a lot of people, and most likely the first game that you will play in this genre of board games.

This one is a little more complex than the other gateway games listed in this article, so use with caution! In this board game, you are a bird enthusiast who is researching, watching, and collecting birds with the main goal being to discover and attract the best birds to your network of wildlife preserves. You must use strategic gameplay to plan ahead and choose wisely when playing these unique bird cards. The winner is the player with the most points after four rounds. Wingspan is a great engine building game that will be sure to take flight at your next game night.

Santorini is a simple game, yet it has so many levels. It is an accessible strategy game that aims to provide gameplay depth and content for hardcore board gamers to explore. Gameplay consists of either moving your builder to a neighboring space or constructing a building level adjacent to the builder you moved. A player wins when their builder reaches the third level. We especially love this game because it has beautiful components that is quick to learn, but really challenging and addicting.

After reading this article, I hope you have a better understanding as to which board games will be the best to use to introduce to new players or non-board gamers into board gaming hobby. These gateway board games are great for introducing new players into the world of board gaming or involving non-board gamers at game night. We like to choose games that are simple to play, but also involve a little strategy in order to keep things interesting.

Hopefully after playing these games, players will want to keep coming back for more, or expand their own library of board games. Hillary is a 26 year old board game enthusiast from New York who specializes in hosting game nights. Think again. We can all get a bit competitive when playing UNO, but no feeling compares to winning. The easiest and quickest place to buy board games is at chain stores, such as Walmart and Target, especially at the games department.

In addition to large chain stores, there are also plenty of Skip to content. What to Look for in Gateway Board Games When it comes to gateway games, there are a few criteria I follow in order to choose the perfect gateway game. See below: 1. Here is our list of the best gateway board games: 1.

Check Latest Price 2. Check Latest Price 3. Check Latest Price 4. Check Latest Price 5. Check Latest Price 6. Check Latest Price 7. Azul With beautiful tile playing pieces, Azul is one of the most visually pleasing board games out there. Check Latest Price 8. King of Tokyo King of Tokyo is a great board game that is easy to learn and fun to play! Once you master this particular version, you can add several other variations to your collection.

Unfortunately, these are not expansion packs, so they are just additional standalone games. Here is your chance to save the world! Pandemic is a cooperative game, meaning everyone either wins or loses together. This makes it perfect for being able to help teach a game without feeling like you are sacrificing your own game play at the same time.

Played with players, this game is great for a date night or a family game night. Dominion is a deck building game, meaning the point of the game is to do exactly that, build your deck to be able to make the plays that will help you win.

You play as a monarch set on expanding your kingdom, bringing civility to the land and making it a more pleasant place to live. The idea is to race against other players to get as much of the unclaimed land as possible while fending them off.

There are over 25 Kingdom cards in the card deck and only 10 are played in one game — meaning a huge variety and replay value. Head back to the days before cell phones and computers, or even before electricity and the modern wheel. In Stone Age, you work for simple survival. Use those resources to build things like huts, boats and more with the goal to achieve new levels of civilization. In 7 Wonders, you are transported back to ancient times where each player controls one of 7 great cities.

Your goal is to develop trade routes, gather resources, and amass a mighty army. Combine the right actions to build your score, and ultimately win the game. The idea is to put together the best possible hand for points while thwarting the other players.

Strategy meets luck. While the theme is cute, this is an incredibly good game to introduce people to the concept of card drafting games. The premise is simple, collect cards to create the highest value hand possible. If you have ever watched Godzilla, and thought it would be great fun to go stomping through Tokyo as a giant monster, then this would be the game for you.

The game play can be reduced to simple dice rolls. With the less experienced, it can seem fun for a while, as you watch their enthusiasm. For more experienced gamers, it lacks depth and any amount of real skill to win the game.

Carcassonne is a tile placement game in which you build countryside around a fortified city, and then place followers on the tiles to gain points and impede your competitors. Carcassonne can be played with players, and is a quick game taking minutes to play.

Actual gameplay mechanics are easy to pick up and there is enough strategy to keep seasoned gamers entertained without scaring off any newbies. Players will need to cultivate land plots, keep them irrigated and choose to grow yellow, green or pink bamboo. Each of the games above are incredibly quick to learn and play and have an addictive quality about them that will have the players hooked in no time.

I have tried to pick games that I believe would appeal to all different types of gamers, from deck building games and cooperation games all the way to simple abstract childrens games with luck and an awesome theme. Your email address will not be published. Learn More Accept X. Byron February 5, No Comments. Table of Contents. What is a Gateway Board Game? Players: 3 — 4 Duration: 60mins — mins.

Simple enough for anyone to learn, both children and adults. Many expansion sets help to increase the difficulty and keep the fresh.

Great interaction among players with trade function. Can only play with 3 — 4 players. Need an expansion set to increase player count. Check Price on Amazon. Ticket to Ride. Players: 2 — 5 Duration: 30mins — 60mins. Easy to learn rules. Great family game. Enough tension and action to keep all players involved through the duration of the game. Many small pieces means if you lose any, the game cannot be played properly. Players: 2 — 4 Duration: 45mins.

Moderate length gameplay, usually lasting about 45 minutes. A gateway game is like a gateway drug. It's what you give to somebody in hopes of them enjoying it and trying harder more intense variations. For instance, I want to get my non nerdy friends to play Pandemic with me a cooperative game but it looks too fiddly for them and the theme has too much science for my friends' tastes. So I bust out Forbidden Island which is easier to win and has very similar mechanics and rules.

They enjoy it so I can suggest Pandemic next time and they will be much more likely to play it. Race for the Galaxy and Twilight Imperium have a similar relationship.

Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Ask Question. Asked 9 years, 8 months ago. Active 2 years, 11 months ago. Viewed 7k times. So: What is a Gateway Game? To help refine the definition: Why are or are not the following borderline cases considered Gateway games: Monopoly Race for the Galaxy Spades a card game which is a Gateway to Bridge, for some.

Improve this question. Atav32 2 2 gold badges 5 5 silver badges 13 13 bronze badges. Joe Golton Joe Golton 8, 6 6 gold badges 44 44 silver badges 80 80 bronze badges. The term can be understood by analogy to "gateway drug". Don't move the goal posts arbitrarily. Better make it a separate question. Also, we usually don't do lists here, as they can typically not be complete, and with not totally clear-cut questions like this, there will be lots of debate whether this or that game belongs on the list or not.

Hackworth I opened a hornet's nest today when I attempted to ask a question in answers-as-items-in-a-list form today and after lots of discussion both Q and Meta , two people suggested I go back to this question and revise it to get a more precise answer. In retrospect I made an error by accepting your answer which was pretty good but still left me wondering about some games. Maybe adding these 2 is enough? Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. BGG has this definition in their glossary: A game with simple rules that is easy to teach to non-gamers in order to attract new players into boardgaming as a hobby.

Usually people will say that a Gateway Game must have at least these qualities: Simple so you can explain the rules to them quickly.

Fun fun games will attract repeat plays. Speaking in just generalities though: Are you trying to convert a brand new player who has never played any games? Are you trying to convert a Party Game player?

Improve this answer. Joe Golton 8, 6 6 gold badges 44 44 silver badges 80 80 bronze badges. Thanks for such a thoughtful answer. Interestingly, using your way of thinking about it, I'd have to say that my top two gateway games for getting other people to advance to a more complex world of gaming have been Spades gateway to Bridge and Cosmic Encounter to all kinds of games , yet neither is typically considered a Gateway game.

That may just be a reflection of the fact that it's been many years since I've converted non-gamers into more complex gamers. CE has luck, limited decisions, and somewhat simple rules the only complications would be the Race Powers, Flares, and Artifacts.