I've been playing quite a bit of
Hanabi, recently. It's a cooperative card-game with a unique twist - you don't get to look at your own cards, only everyone else's! You have to work together to try to play the cards in sequence - you're allowed to give limited clues to your teammates to help them out. Really good fun, especially once you've played a few games with the same group and figured out how they think. Takes 2-5 players. I'd highly recommend it if you've got some people who are willing to put some thought into things.
A few other ones I've tried recently (it seems as though I've been playing slightly more casual games than before, looking through the list):
Love Letter - Very casual card game for 2-4 players (works best with 4). It's easy to pick up and play, so ideal for teaching to people who just don't get those crazy board/card games they always see you playing. There's a heavy degree of randomness, but the right amount of skill involved that it feels as though you can influence the outcome in your favour. There's a lot of targeting other players and it's almost designed to have a sort of rubber-band mechanic built in. Makes for an entertaining half an hour or so.
Lost Cities - Two player card game. Very quick to play, easy to learn the rules but takes a while to figure out how to play it well. Only takes 10-15 minutes to play a game once you know what you're doing. Might be a good one if you've got an SO you want to play something with.
Mr. Jack - Victorian London themed two-player game. It's a hunter/hunted game (eg. in the same vein as
Scotland Yard, if you've ever played that), but with some interesting mechanics about how the 'hunting' part happens. Very tactical, takes a few plays to get the hang of (probably about 45min duration, maybe a little longer). I've quite enjoyed this whenever I've played it.
Escape: The Curse of the Temple - This only takes 10 minutes to play, but it'll have your heart pounding. It comes with a soundtrack you play the game to. You are explorers in an ancient ruin and your aim is to find all the gemstones inside and then escape before you are trapped forever. Each player has a set of dice that you can roll as often as you like to achieve this. You have to work as a team - either you all make it out and you win, or one or more of you is stuck and you all lose. The result is a lot of very frantic dice rolling as the music can make you a bit panicky. Very good fun (although this game is more on the 'light' end of the scale in that there's not a whole lot of strategy involved). Takes up to 5 players.
King of Tokyo - You play a monster trying to assert dominance over Tokyo! Takes up to 6 players. In practice it's like a cross between King of the Hill and Yahtzee. You attack other monsters and either try to amass enough points (either by being King of the Hill for a long time or by other methods) or kill all your opponents to win. It's good fun (there are powerup cards that add some spice) although I would say that with a lot of players it suffers slightly from the fact that it's possible to be knocked out and have to sit around waiting for the game to finish.
Tzolkin - This one is a bit more serious/intensive. It's a worker-placement type game with a Mayan theme. Unique selling point - the board has gears on it that turn and stuff! Definitely one of the best boards of any game I've played. And it's probably one of my favourite boardgames overall, actually. You put workers on the gears and they rotate to different actions, then you take them off at the optimum moment to do what you need. There's a lot of planning involved, but there are multiple paths to victory that all feel refreshingly distinct. I always enjoy this whenever I play it. Takes 2-4 players, probably 90 minutes to 2 hours play time.
ST
This post has been edited by Sir Thursday: 07 May 2014 - 11:57 AM
Don't look now, but I think there's something weird attached to the bottom of my posts.