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Luke Griffiths:
Requested to think of a game gift that falls under the £20 cost bracket, I took to Zatu to look what the money could buy me and the answer to the question “What is a great game for under £20?” was metaphorically staring at me from the computer screen on the bestsellers list and for what you would probably say is a little more than £10 rather than under £20!
I introduce you to Bananagrams! Famously (?) making a brief appearance in the Peter Rabbit movie the game Bananagrams comes with similarities to the classic game of Scrabble. You have tiles with letters from which you must make up words that fit together, crossword style, such that touching letters read left to right or downwards are making real words.
That is where the similarities end, however. I’ll hold up my hand and state that I am no fan of Scrabble. I struggle with the limited letter pool, other players taking my spot where I have planned what I can do and the fact it just doesn’t feel like fun.
Bananagrams, on the other hand, overcomes a lot of these issues; and I love it. Taking a stock of tiles, you build your own collection of words; no one is going to be taking your spot as they are building their own set. Once a player has used all the tiles in hand they are to shout “peel” resulting in all players taking an additional tile. They must then try to fit this tile to the current build of words or break things down to make it do so. This adds a different element to Bananagrams that isn’t present in Scrabble; can you think on your feet as to whether you are best to try an add the letter to what you have or break things down a lot to fit it in?
If a player is truly stuck, they can say “dump” and exchange a tricky tile for three different ones. I try not to do this, preferring to completely re-think my board to fit a difficult letter than exchange which may well be why I often lose
Once there are not enough tiles for players to peel (number of tiles remaining < number of players) the race is on to use all the tiles that remain. The first player to do so shouts “Bananagrams” before having their win inspected for validity by the other players. This is often cue for a lot of players to laugh at the various words they may have made.
I can’t envisage Bananagrams not being a popular game to receive as a gift. It is simple enough that pretty much anyone can play and steers away from the intense board game vibe that serious gamers, and I definitely include myself in that, might thrive on. So a non-gamer would enjoy this just as much as an avid gamer. A more frequent gamer should still, however, find enough variety in games of Bananagrams that they enjoy themselves too.
Sophie Jones:
For me, Diamant is a staple game, and I was thrilled to add it to my collection this summer. With its fun character redesign, shiny gems, and 3-D treasure chests, there’s so much game packed into a small box and all for a budget-friendly price!
Diamant plays 3-8 people, making it ideal for larger gatherings with mixed abilities and ages, some may say, a great pick for Christmas. It’s quick to set up, easy to teach, and seriously exciting as each new tile is revealed. The idea’s simple but effective: players venture down five tunnels collecting gems. But as you dig deeper, the stakes get higher, and each player has to weigh up whether to push their luck and risk everything or play it safe.
Each round, everyone secretly decides whether to keep exploring or retreat back to camp to bank their gems. Keep going, and you might walk away with a huge haul but watch out! If two of the same trap appear, it’s game over for that round, and you’re back to camp empty handed. Nothing beats being sat at camp with a smug face as everyone else returns their gems due to another boulder reveal.
After five rounds, everyone reveals their treasures, and the player with the most gems wins! The real thrill comes in those nail biting moments when it’s just down to two players left in the tunnel. It’s always tough to retreat when you know the next tile could hand your opponent a massive pile of gems.
With its mix of risk and reward, eye-catching artwork, and intense moments, Diamant is a lot of fun in a small box. Whether you're shopping for a family game night or looking for a fun addition to your friends' game collection, Diamant’s mix of excitement and accessibility makes it an ideal gift under £20.
Seb Hawden:
Lost Cities has been a favourite game of mine for many years. It has that thing I love in board games where every card you play hurts, most of the time you don’t even want to play a card and just want to skip your turn entirely. It's beautifully painful, every time.
In Lost Cities you and your opponent are sending out expeditions to 5 mysterious corners of the Earth. You are battling over these 5 areas and must manage your hand, play cards at the right time and outwit your opponent to win.
After drawing a hand of cards, turns are snappy and brisk. You play a card from your hand to either one of the 5 expeditions or one of the expeditions discard piles, then draw a card from either the draw deck or one of the expedition discard piles. The reason for this is that as soon as you put a card in an expedition you are ‘technically’ 20 points down in that expedition and must play further cards to eventually get over the initial outlay.
The issue with this is that the cards need to be played in ascending order. The whole game is about managing your hand, you never want to discard a card your opponent wants, as they can just draw it on their turn but equally, you dont want to play your high cards into an expedition because you want to maximise your score in that area. It's painfully brilliant. Every turn is filled with angst and torture. I love it!
If you have friends that love games where the head to head battle is on a constant knife-edge, then Lost Cities should be your first stop. I have been paying for years and don’t see me stopping any time soon. I never want to play a card and groan the whole time I am playing but it's amazing.
John Hunt:
If you want a 2 player, head-to-head then you can’t do any better than the new hotness that is Compile. The somewhat superfluous theme is about rival AI’s who are battling over, erm... something, as they gain control of, erm... something else. So it’s sci-fi – and to be fair the art, production and design ooze Matrix-style theming in the deck of 87 cards.
In this AI battle you are each going to draft three mini decks which you combine to play with. Each of these has one protocol card placed as part of set-up – so you each have a row of three cards facing each other – a la, Air Land and Sea or Radlands. The other eighteen cards – six from each suit - are shuffled to provide a draw deck, and you start with a hand of five cards.
Most turns consist of playing a card, face up into the column of the same suit as the protocol or face down anywhere on your side of the table. Each face-up card has a value of 0 – 6 and one or more powers, while face-down cards only have a value of 2. Powers range from instants, to persistent until covered, to persistent regardless. Here the asymmetry of the decks comes into play: drawing more cards, burning cards, returning them to the hand – and in all this some will enable you to affect your opponent as well as yourself. The 12 different suits all have a distinct theme-related blend of card effects: Death does a lot of burning, Metal prevents, Fire discards for effect, etc.
In all of this you are trying to get a value of 10 or higher in a column, which if you can retain it then allow you to spend the whole of the following turn Compiling that column. First to Compile all three of their columns wins. Fast, fun, mean, and combo-tastic – all at under £20.
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