✋𝗖𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗚𝗮𝗺𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆'𝘀 𝗕𝗘𝗦𝗧 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗚𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘀!✋
Posted by GAMEOLOGY COLLABORATOR
With restrictions starting to lift its time to gather your teammates for a good ol'fashioned board game showdown.
To that effect we have gathered our top list of best board game battlegrounds to test you and your friend's teamwork (or lack of!)
And let us know down below any of your favorite team games that we might have missed, we always love to hear your suggestions.
1) The Resistance: Avalon
Check out The Resistance Avalon Here
2) Decrypto
In the same vein as other word association games like Codenames, or Word Slam, Decrypto is a game of breaking codes, and coming up with ideas.
And I’m all out of ideas.
In Decrypto, you and your crafty code-master agents must secretly unscramble codes without letting the enemy team do it as well.
Each team will be equipped with a state-of-the-art, high-tech, cardboard card holder to hold their key words.
One member of each team will be designated the Encryptor and must use all their knowledge of mathematics, algorithms and general statistical analysis to formulate intricate and complex algorithms – No I’m kidding, all you do is say code words that relate to the given key words.
But we wary, the enemy is listening in to your communications and will be tracking your given code words every round and eventually compiling a list of previous code words. If too many code words are too similar, keywords can be deciphered and your code can be broken.
3) Wavelength
From the creators of “The Mind” and “Monikers” comes another mind-reading classic. In this game of psychic-guessing players must be on the same wavelength haha. Now that, that’s been said we can move on. The hook for Wavelength is in its very unique Dial Wheel. 
The entirety of the game revolves around this wheel.
Wavelength puts players into 2 teams to see who thinks in the most similar way.
To play, each team will draw a category card that reveals a spectrum (e.g. hot-cold, quiet-loud, ugly-GAMEOLOGY COLLABORATOR), this spectrum is shared amongst both teams.
Once drawn, a single player will spin the wheel to see where the target location lands, based off this location, that player will provide a clue word after closing the dial’s shield.
For example, on a spectrum of quiet-loud, a brilliant mind may give the clue: Coffee! (IT WAS A GOOD CLUE, SEAN! LEAVE ME ALONE). This will lead to profound, and insightful discussions on the volume of coffee, and scholarly questions such as: how loud is coffee? Is it as loud as tea? Does the addition of milk make it louder or quieter? Until finally, they will come to the obvious realisation that you’re trying to relate it to the sound of a kettle (WHICH IS LOUD, SEAN!!).
Passive aggressive, hidden messages aside, once your clues are given, players on your team must turn the needle dial to where they think the target location is. BUT BE CAREFUL, as with all games that I write about, that cant be all there is. There must be a twist.
The clues you give are heard by your opposition team as well. And they may venture a guess to where the target location is, whether it be more to the left or to the right of your teams guess.
If they guess correctly they may sneak some points in when it’s not even their turn. So be careful, be crafty and don’t cross your wavelengths.
4) Captain Sonar
Have you ever played a boring game of Battleship and thought “Wow, I wish this was more chaotic, loud, had an overall feeling dread, was a 2 to 8 player game, and called ‘Captain Sonar’”? Well if so, do I have the game for you!
Take control of the USS Incapable as you and your crew of friends control, repair and barely keep your submarine un-afloat in this game of tactical hide and seek.
In Captain Sonar players will divide into two teams to pilot and maintain competing vessels, both seeking to destroy their opponent before their submarine succumbs to the wear and tear of the anticlimactic underwater warfare.
Players will assume the many different roles of the Submarine Crew ranging from the Captain to steer the ship, to the engineer who stresses over all the damage the rest of crew do.
Throughout the game, players must track their opponents through sonar scans and other special abilities. But watch out, every time an action is conducted, it creates stress and damages on your ship.
If enough stress is applied on your ship, you are forced to surface to conduct repairs, leaving you and your crew exposed and vulnerable to attack.
Every crew member has a role and each role is wonderfully unique and collaborative with other crew members.
Are you ready to tackle and overcome the greatest threat of the Seven Sea’s? The looming threat of doom? The thing all sailors of war fear? Can you be a … PRODUCTIVE TEAM?
5) You Got Crabs
Do you have crabs? Want them? Now you do, in this unnecessarily mature-themed game of crab collection.
In this super simple go-fish-esque (?) kind of game, you and your friends will pair up and try your darndest to horde crab cards until you have 4 of a kind. Sounds too simple? You’re right, this needs more rules.
When you have 5 of a kind, you must tell your partner but without talking, or making sounds, and without letting outsiders know. “But Gameology Collaborator, how is this possible?” I hear you ask. Through non-verbal signs of course!
The absolute joy of this game comes in the incredible creativity that can be found in the creation of your secret signs and the ridiculous paranoia when trying to discern the signs of other crab hoarders (Croaders?).
A slight brush of the hair with the right hand, a tug of the right ear, BOTH at the same time? You’ll be wracking your brain if the signs are genuine or a ploy to bait you into false accusations.
Come have some fun and share crabs amongst your friends in this CIA body-language training game.
6) Mysterium
Ever wanted to greet some ghost? Have a social séance? Mingle with the mangled? Well, look no further than the creepy and beautiful Mysterium spooky noises.
Brought to you by the makers of beloved classic: DIXIT.
In this harrowing, hollowing, heck of a good time, you and your fellow psychics are going to the local haunted house to investigate a …. Murder! more spooky noises But this isn’t some kind of basic Cluedo ripoff with amazing art and even better blog post writer, this is its own game, with its own ambitions and mechanic hooks.
When you arrive at the haunted house, players will be struck with visions, a stunning array of colours and images in the form of artistic Vision Cards. These visions will be the way the ghost of the murdered victim will seek to communicate with the psychics.
The ghost will be played by another player, who will seek to provide investigators with clues to point them to different suspects.
The detail in these cards will reveal to investigators the suspect, the murder weapon and the location of the murder.
If the correct combination is found for each individual player, the investigators can move onto the Endgame to find which of the suspects the murderer is.
This ghostly, ghoulish, and sinister setting is wonderfully alleviated with its beautiful art, and the high quality production of its components.
So close the curtains, light some candles and whip out the Ouija board, its murder mystery time with Casper the Ghost.
