You Won’t Want to Look at Your Phone With These Well-Designed Tabletop Games Around

Welcome to Someone Buy This!, a monthly shopping column featuring the fun, the frivolous, and the practical from a very discerning shopper.

I’ve been trying to spend less time scrolling on my phone and more time doing literally anything else with my hands. Lately, that’s meant taking on small DIY projects and playing board games.

The problem is that most board games look like they’re designed for children: bubbly fonts, cartoon characters, and loud colors. The games that are made for adults are often weirdly raunchy or look like those lucite chess sets you’d see in a museum gift shop. Who buys those?

This plight sent me searching for games that I’d actually want to play, not tuck away in a drawer or closet. Here’s what I found.

New stuff

My absolute favorite find was Snakes of Wrath, a two-player game by Weast Coast Games. The goal is simple: use the domino-size pieces to grow your snake and stab your opponent along the way. It’s just challenging enough and when the game really gets going, super competitive players (i.e. my partner) might even yell.

The game’s packaging caught my eye as I was searching online for two-player games. (There are NOT enough two-player games out there!) The snake illustrations have a really cool tattoo-like style to them and the box fits right in with the rest of my books and knickknacks. Weast Coast has two other games, both card games, and they’re just as unique as Snakes of Wrath. All three manage to feel retro and modern at the same time. Striking that balance without the design feeling dated is tough to pull off. Plus the games are actually fun!

Spruced up classics

We’re a big Uno household, so when I saw the "retro edition" at a store I picked it up immediately and have since renamed it Uno for Creative Directors. We have, somehow, five different Uno games, but this is the only one that lives out in the open. The rest, especially one we refer to as Evil Uno because it’s a double-sided deck, are too loud to blend in with our decor.

And then there’s this Eames deck, which I came across recently. I don’t actually own a standard deck of cards, so this one is definitely on my list. I love the slight twist on the traditional design, but wish they’d done something more interesting with the King, Queen, and Jack.

While looking around for twists on classic games, I stumbled upon a new (to me) corner of the board game world: designer board games. Gucci is, or was, killing it in this category. I’ve never played backgammon but this set is incredible, and so is this poker set which looks to be from the same era. These are obviously not casual purchases. They’re well outside my price range but if you’ve got a couple thousand to spend, these games are great options!

Go back in time

My search for games also led me backwards to vintage games from the 1950s and ’60s. I learned you can easily replace childhood favorites—like Trouble and Clue—with their vintage counterparts. Look at the typography on this Sorry! game from the ’50s!

Some of the search results, however, were emotionally confusing. Seeing the Monopoly board I played with in the late ’90s labeled as "vintage" made me feel something I’m not quite ready to unpack.

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