Azul- Azul is a strategy game in which you place tiles to build a mural. Each tile placed gains you points and for each tile directly adjacent to the ones you place you receive another point. It is for two to four players and can take anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes to complete based on how quickly you move through the steps. This was one of the first board games I played when quarantine started and it has become a household favorite. Azul is a beautifully designed game and is really fun once you get the hang of it.  It does require a bit of thinking and planning things out, so if that is not your forté then this may not be for you.

Ticket to Ride Europe- Ticket to Ride Europe is the second installment in the Ticket to Ride series. This game is a fun family game that can be learned relatively easily. You play locomotive cards to place a train on the track and try to make chains to different locations across Europe. It’s playable for up to five players and is a great way to spend time. When I played this it took around an hour and a half, but it was my family’s first time playing so it took longer than it normally would. Descriptions online say it takes 30 to 60 minutes. This is a fun game and considering it is a series if you like this one there are many others to play.

Obama Llama- I played this celebrity rhyming game for the first time last night and had a blast. It is for four or more players on two separate teams. I played with my family of four and that is one of the only issues I had with it. It is a very fun game involving celebrity charades, guessing rhymes and memory. It would be a great party game with larger teams than two people per team. It is also one for more pop-culture savvy people as some of the names involved in the rhymes would not be recognizable to younger players. It is not impossible, however, that is just a small road bump that could make the game longer due to increased guessing time for each answer. That being said it is one of my new favorite games and I cannot wait to (safely) play it in a larger group setting.

Suspicion- Suspicion is a Clue-type mystery game that involves guests at a party taking gems. Each player is assigned a character and the others have to use clues from each turn to uncover who each person is. Unlike Clue, however, the game is not reliant on discovering each person’s identity. It revolves around points, each gem collected is one point, each set of three gems is six points, and each person you guess correctly is worth seven points. There are 10 characters to get and can be played by groups of two to groups of ten. It requires you to pay attention but has a relatively short playing time.  I have been playing this game for around a year and it is one of my favorites.