Too Many Poops
Easy to learn and tough to master, this card game (shown above) encourages you to collect adorable cats, which deposit tiny plastic “pooples” into their owner’s litter box every round. To win, you need to hoard felines, but not too many—just like in real life, having more than 10 poops in the litter box means you lose. With each turn, you can acquire more cats or offload your pooples into someone else’s litter box for some truly catty backstabbing. (2 to 6 players, ages 7+)
$20
Pandemic Legacy: Season 1
The classic 2008 board game Pandemic used whole-world, Risk-like mechanics. This sequel offers a twist that puts players closer to the action. It’s structured like a TV series, starring tireless health care workers trying to quell a deadly global pandemic. (Too soon?) Each round of play follows an episode that’s part of a larger “season.” Changes to your characters’ mental states and the disease’s behavior help shape subsequent episodes. Pandemic Legacy is entertainment you can consume in segments or binge in a day-long marathon—just like your favorite Netflix drama. (2 to 4 players, ages 13+)
$70
Bluebeard’s Bride
This role-playing game goes well beyond the typical dungeon delving. Bluebeard’s Bride explores sex, trauma, murder, and mystery from the perspective of the just-married wife of the monstrous Grimm’s fairy tale character. Each player inhabits a different aspect of her psyche—Animus, Fatale, Mother, Virgin, and Witch. Together, the team works to keep the Bride alive (and sane) as it wanders room to room in her murderous new husband’s mansion. Surprises and horrors lurk behind every door. (3 to 5 players, ages 18+)
$50
Thornwatch
Welcome to the endless deep of the haunted forest Eyrewood. Together players explore its murky vales as the party is beset by ancient evils, forbidden magic, and giant crows. Thornwatch is a rich and sprawling experience with role-playing elements like characters that level up and collect inventory items. Each session is its own quest that’s part of a longer story arc. The board isn’t just a board; you lay it out differently for each quest, using tiles illustrated like panels in a graphic novel. They’re beautifully drawn but take up quite a bit of space as you get further into the campaign. An average Thornwatch session can fill up one to three quarantine hours. (3 to 6 players, ages 14+)
$75
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