I know that I’m supposed to say my hobby is playing board games, but that isn’t true. My real hobby is buying board games that look awesome and trying to play them with my family. That’s what makes these deals so enticing: There are so many discounts you can swell your game library for far less than normal.
Azul is one of those classic board games that’s all about strategy and is very similar to Five Tribes. It involves picking up tiles and placing them in a mosaic that gives you the most points. It’s not quite that simple, though, since you can end up placing too many tiles and losing points, so you have to strategically place your tiles down.
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Haunted Mansion is one of my family’s favorite Disneyland rides and movie, and now it’s one of our favorite board games too. The game itself is a card management game where you try and get as many of certain types of cards as possible while trying to avoid being haunted by the traveling ghost.
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You’ve probably heard about Cards Against Humanity, a party game that’s often too rude for young kids to play. Kids Against Maturity takes the same game premise — the person who makes the judge laugh the most wins the hand — but makes it just a little naughty instead.
This is a great entry to family night and lets your kids feel like they’re getting away with something they shouldn’t be doing, but with your guidance and consent. It’s a lot of fun for everyone. Just be sure to activate the instant coupon on the product page to get the full discount.
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Save $15 with coupon
Splendor is known as an engine-generation game that uses gems as its currency. To that end, a large portion of the game is about making sure you’re generating more and more gems so you can afford higher-cost items that give you more points. It’s a fun and straightforward strategy game that can get pretty deep if you want it to.
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If you’re looking for a light-hearted game you can play with up to five friends, Camel Up has you pitted against a set of camels controlled by dice. As the dice are rolled, the camels will randomly move up and down a track, and you all bet to see who will win, so it requires some strategy. There are five rounds, after which the person with the most points gained through correct guesses wins.
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Mansions of Madness is our favorite co-op mystery game on the market right now, and is a great pick if want a more complex game that’s designed for older players. This second edition of the game uses a companion app as the “keeper” so that all players (up to five) can work together as they explore the sprawling mansion, solve puzzles and battle eldritch horrors.
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Where’s the best place for board game deals?
While Amazon might be the obvious choice for board games, there are still plenty of other places you can find great deals. Target tends to have a good selection of board game deals, often giving discounts such as “buy one, get one 50% off,” though we haven’t seen any of those this holiday season.
What makes a good board game deal?
Remember, a product’s list price doesn’t always tell you the real value, especially as retailers have started offering Day 1 deals on products. Often the list price is artificially inflated to make the deal look more attractive, so you’ll want to check around and see what the true value of a product is. You might also want to install CNET’s Shopping plugin to give you a bit of help with all of that.
