Happy New Year Friends! If you’re looking for a fun way to work more gaming into your New Year Resolutions, we’ve got you covered!

Sometimes a game comes out and we just know we are going to love it. 

Whether its because of its theme, mechanic, designer, or publisher, we just know that it’s one we can’t wait to put on our shelves back home. 

Other times, however, it’s not as easy. Maybe it’s something completely different from what we’re used to playing. Perhaps it seems too similar to what we already have. Or maybe we’re just not sure if it’s worth the price. Whatever the reason, there are a lot of games that hit the shelves at stores that we aren’t sure would work for us. That’s why when we can, we like to try a game before we buy it.

Due to a lack of board gaming friends with libraries we can borrow from, we’ve found a lot of different ways to test out games before we purchase them. Here are three of our favorites!

Have you ever wondered if a game was all it was cracked up to be? Especially a game with a gimmicky mechanic? 

We’ve all been there. A new game comes out that looks fun and different and we are instantly intrigued and curious. Sometimes it’s putting a fun twist on an old classic. Sometimes it’s just straight up different and we are squinting our eyes at it wondering, “Is that really as fun as it looks? Will it work for my kids?”

Let me tell you, we’ve had our fair share of buyers remorse when it comes to board games but also a fair amount of pleasant surprises. So in spirit of it being almost Halloween, we thought we’d run through some of our children’s and family games that have either tricked us or treated us with their gimmicks!

In our family, board gaming is a well loved hobby. Both my husband and I grew up at the table playing games with our families and it’s a passion that has followed us to adulthood and that we now have the pleasure of sharing with our own children.

My husband and I have spent the last ten years playing board games together. No, I’m not talking about seeing if we need anger management classes by playing Monopoly or choosing which career path we want to pursue in Life. I’m talking about making the life or death decision of which city to cure of a disease lest an outbreak occur in Pandemic, cackling like a maniac when you oust your opponent with a direct hit of four attack strikes to become the baddest monster in King of Tokyo, and smartly building and managing the best winery in pre-modern Tuscany in Viticulture.