Castle Panic

I love tower defense games online so this board game is great. Love doing solo play as well and making harder challenges for myself (i.e. lose a wall and lose the game etc). The ease to explain coupled with the payoff of the game make this a fantastic introductory game for new gamers

A well balanced coop game. It's an ideal game for new people as the coop element means that everyone can help each other. I would avoid collecting tokens of 'kills' as this can add friction to the game if people take them too seriously.

This is what I would describe as the perfect game. Why? Because the tension when those monsters come at you from the forest is just balanced perfectly (well, maybe a little easy... but hey, we're here to have fun). Absolutely recommend this game for families. On my birthday when the kids HAVE to play whatever I want, it's either this game or Karak, which is equally as light and also always fun.

This is my favorite cooperative game! We originally got this when my kid was around 6 and hated losing a game. Since either all the players win, or all of them lose to the monsters, this prevented many meltdowns. It's a good game for teaching teamwork and resilience, and of course the fantasy setting is great. My kid turns 20 next month and we still play this several times a year.

Recently introduced to me, but I instantly fell in love with its gameplay, art, and versatility. Will be buying the expansion packs. Update: 2026-07-09 I have played both The Wizard's Tower (TWT) and Engines of War (EoW) expansion packs. Of the two, I like TWT quite a bit more. I found it hard to fully utilize the siege tower properly in EoW. However, it was extremely satisfying to cast spells against the enemy in TWT, and the new bosses had a good amount of difficulty without being utterly hopeless to defeat. Still my favorite game as of now.