Board games

Follow me on Kickstarter to see that I back too many games.

Favorite game publishers

Gamelyn Games makes the Tiny Epic series. These are small-sized games that play big on a table. They have excellent solo modes, scale to four or five players, and play in about an hour.
Button Sky Games makes quick-to-play wallet-sized games, for one to two players.
Sinister Fish Games share a gorgeous aesthetic, with quality materials.

Tiny Epic Dungeons (2021) is a dungeon crawler, with great mechanics. It also got me into painting minifigures.
Wingspan (2019) is well balanced, beautiful, and educational.

Settlers of Catan (1995) made me realize games could be significantly more entertaining than Monopoly, Risk, or Scrabble.
Risk (1959) was played continuously in high school during breaks throughout the school day. In the iOS version, games would last ten minutes instead of hours. I realized in dismay that strategy and decision making was a miniscule part of the gameplay, as most of the time requirement was set up, rolling the dice, moving pieces, and waiting on other players. Since then, I vowed to find more interesting games and be more sensitive to game mechanics.