Our Gateway Games | Board Games that Got Us Into the Hobby

[@Skaty155]

Hi from Halifax, NS. Great video! My wife and I were recently introduced to modern gaming with Carcassonne. Played it to death. Then ticket to ride, Lotus, and smash up. We just picked up our first copy of small world and are going to get into it tonight! Always looking for new games for us to play, which brought me to your video 😃

[@FostertheMeeple]

Yayyy!! Fellow Nova Scotian! We just moved back to the south shore but love seeing some locals watching! TTR is a game we got introduced to later into our hobby journey, but still fantastic! Thanks for watching!!

[@alex2d]

Pokemon Master Trainer is ABSOLUTELY one of the games that got me into the hobby. I played it all the time when I was a kid, and my friends and I even brought it out again to play about a month ago. So excited to see that here

[@FostertheMeeple]

Hahaha it has fond memories for sure

[@fludzbehindme]

We as a family always played games like life, uno, monopoly etc. Then we went into a game store and saw a wall of carcassone and expansions. We bought the big box. Oh my, totally addicted. I think ticket to ride was next. Now I work at a game store and it is one paycheck for me and one paycheck to the store lol.

[@FostertheMeeple]

I can’t even imagine. I’d literally just be working for boardgames!

[@MasterZhao]

@@FostertheMeeple You guys should do a top board games on iOS/Android vid

[@LittleBigThumbs]

Going through Rise of Fenris was one of my all time favourite gaming memories!

[@FostertheMeeple]

Agreed! I should have talked about it more. But yea, I was incredibly captivated by the entire campaign of Fenris. I wish they would do more!

[@DireMcCann]

Will Wheaton and Tabletop got me interested in board games! Played the crap out of King of Tokyo, Takenoko, and Lords of Waterdeep!

[@FostertheMeeple]

Love it!

[@Kyle-ng7il]

Your gateway games were very heavy lol Great vid!

[@FostertheMeeple]

It’s always been something we’ve joked about internally! Haha I do wish we had maybe played some of the “classic” intro games early on, as it isn’t the same experience to play them after you’ve been in the hobby a bit longer. But I wouldn’t change anything!! Thanks for watching and commenting! We appreciate it a ton.

[@jonathanstodola6624]

I grew up playing a bunch of cards and the classic board games with family and high school friends. Then once I hit college I had a friend group and together we DOVE into the hobby haha if we weren't in class we were playing games! Our favorites were Inis, Cosmic Encounter, and One night werewolf. It was these friends that got me into watching TableTop and board game channels similar to yours, and now a few years later I've got a solid collection (that's still growing lol), Inis is still in my top 3 games of all time, and that college group will still call each other to chat about our latest board games! Anywhos, keep up the great work! Really enjoying the channel :)

[@FostertheMeeple]

I love this story honestly so much. I sometimes wish we had a similar backstory of a gaming group with shared memories, which we do to some degree. But certainly not to the depth you outline above. Really appreciate you sharing this story!! Of those list of games - cosmic encounter has been recommended to me numerous times, it’s on my list to pick up sometime soon. I am excited to give it a try! Thanks so so much for watching, commenting and the kind words! - Jeff

[@darbyl3872]

Carcassonne and Quarto! were my gateways. That was all the money I was going to spend, and they were good enough for a while. Then I had to get a couple of Carcassonne expansions. And then a few more. Then Age Of War, San Juan, and Love Letter. Then 170 more. 😅

[@RedeemedChains]

Thank you for mentioning Munchkin Quest. That was my first modern game that got me into the hobby. Absolutely loved it

[@FostertheMeeple]

Same!! We had so much fun playing it when we first started getting into games

[@PwnageEngage]

Risk was the classic game that really got me excited to play boardgames. Pandemic was the game that got me into buying/collecting modern board games :)

[@FostertheMeeple]

Risk was big for me somewhat early on - but I left it off as I didn’t play a ton of it. I played it most during University, definitely was on the fence of being on this list!

[@groom021]

Love you pics guys. Love your energy also. My games during childhood: Scotland Yard, Risk, Monopoly, Rummikub etc. As adult I started getting into board games around 2013. My getaway games: Munchkin, Citadels, Magic, Pandemic, Ticket to Ride, Tokaido, CV, Tales of Arabian nights, Tsuro, The Resistance, The Cave etc.

[@FostertheMeeple]

Thank you! That is an awesome list of games. We just tried Ticket to Ride for the first time not that long ago - amazing intro game!

[@jeffreymishra-marzetti9194]

I just started getting hooked into the hobby of modern board games within the last half year. As a kid it was Monopoly and Uno. Now, with kids of my own and wanting to give them better choices, I did a little research before the holidays. I discovered Ghost Fighting Treasure Hunters for them. It was so much fun playing it, I started looking into other stuff that might be good for my husband and I. Those were Splendor and Jaipur. I just got our first mid-weight game Bruxelles 1897 and are enjoying the complexity. Probably, still holding off on 5 hour long games for now, but that could change in another couple of months!

[@FostertheMeeple]

This is awesome! We love these stories. We hope you find some great suggestions here, and other content that is out on YT. So many great games for everyone!! We hope you, your husband and your kids find some great games!! Thank you for watching and commenting!

[@courtney1629]

Ticket to Ride Europe is definitely the biggest gateway game for my husband and me. It's still one of my favorites haha.

[@FostertheMeeple]

We just played ticket to ride (original) for the first time about a month or two ago!! We had a lot of fun, and definitely understood the hype around it! We might add it to the collection, as it for sure is a great gateway game!

[@MattRobertsonBixby]

Thanks for sharing your Gateway Games Journey. Game of Thrones. Wow!!! I played the usual Parker Brothers "roll & move" games in my youth. I was kind of blown away when I learned stratego as it had increased layers of strategy and decisions. Card games like Cribbage, Auction 45's, & Rummy were also staples growing up. In my late teens / early twenties I discovered Risk and later Supremacy and those games saw lots of table time. Advanced Dungeons and Dragons was my prime gaming fix during my twenties. In my late twenties / early thirties I jumped into Magic: The Gathering with both feet. Along that time I discovered a couple of other games that piqued my interest. Carcassonne: Hunters & Gatherers, Settlers of Catan, and the Crayon Rail games from Mayfair games. It was around 2005 when I discovered HeroScape that the full blown dive into the hobby occurred. I sold all of my Magic the Gathering cards and used the store credit to buy a game collection. Between HeroScape and my newly acquired board games, an obsession was born...

[@malvinafis6907]

Very nice video again. Of the games you names I only played Scythe I think once. For me, the games that brought me into the hobby as a child were Catan, Carcassonne, Monopoly, Scotland Yard. I would be interested in watching a playthrough of your gateway games.

[@FostertheMeeple]

We are going to work on it!! Those are great games listed! Thanks as always for being awesome, we really appreciate the love and dialogue you give us!

[@erikohman2294]

If you love GoT so much you have the mother of dragons expansion, yes? I dont own the game, but some of my friends do, and playing it with that expansion was brilliant! An absolutley great experiense without having a full set of players. Chefs kiss!

[@FostertheMeeple]

We haven’t!! I’m for sure going to check into this now. Really appreciate the suggestion!

[@markoverett719]

Hello from Brisbane, Australia. Jacqui and I love your stuff! So much fun. Our gateway games (ie what got us back into board games) are Catan, Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride... very quickly followed by our first cooperative game Pandemic.

[@FostertheMeeple]

Hello from Halifax, NS, Canada!!! Thank you so much for the kind words! Really means a lot to us. Those are all for sure great games! We haven’t played Carcassonne - but it comes up frequently in these types of conversations!

[@kdotplays4521]

The Pokemon Masters made me laughed out loud because it was my first board game that I begged my parents for Christmas. (Also grew up in Fredericton).

[@FostertheMeeple]

Hahah that is amazing. May Fredericton forever be associated with Pokémon Masters.

[@phillipheaton9832]

If you are going to paint miniatures, make sure you wash them thoroughly first. That will ensure that you get off all the mold release that is sprayed into the molds to easy the solidified mminiatures out of them. Mold release doesn't hold paint well, nuff said.

[@FostertheMeeple]

Definitely!! I wash all them beforehand!

[@Feroxing12]

I got Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle - Defence Against the Dark Arts for kids for christmas as they love HP and i liked the idea they would spend time in real world instead of looking into phones and tablets all the time. So we played it together and all of us enjoyed it. couple of days later i got nemesis. That's how i started.

[@FostertheMeeple]

That’s one we played a bunch of!! Very fun game to explore

[@conradglasbergen4708]

Growing up playing payday, monopoly, stock ticker, cards. Did play a ton of mtg, yugioh, Pokémon, starwars tcg, and lotr card game in high-school and playing with cousins. My entry into more...board gamey games was pandemic, dominion and Catan. My first heavy game i bought and played was scythe!

[@FostertheMeeple]

Twins!! Scythe is great. We considered dominion on this list but it was a bit too late into our timeline to make it. We do love dominion though! I did play some TCGs growing up. Star Trek TCG was a big one for me in Middle School, and then Pokémon hit and took over the schoolyard haha. Thanks for watching and commenting! - Jeff

[@SClarkPharmD]

Scythe was my entry into the gaming hobby! A playthrough of Game of Thrones sounds like it would be entertaining to watch.

[@FostertheMeeple]

Buckle in for 5+ hours of intrigue and battling!! Haha

[@JohnBrown-wk4io]

I find the concept of gateway games interesting but your channel seems to have mentioned a more adequate term for what we are discussing. The notion of transition games into modern boardgaming. I think our gateway games are those games that got us to put away any thing that was not board gaming & that we happily allowed to consume our time. Many of what is listed as the gateway games are the board games that transition us into the larger board gaming world. Thank you for sharing.

[@FostertheMeeple]

Thanks for this!! Well said!

[@boardsontables8924]

Playthroughs of some of your favorites would be fun. I really enjoy hearing your opinions on topics like this. I'm curious how quickly your collection grew? Was it slow and steady or fast and furious? Love your content keep it up!

[@FostertheMeeple]

It grew very quickly - but full transparency, most of our “collection” that you see are Zachs games. However, we went from having 1-2 boardgames to having 20 very very fast. Couple of months. We dove in and haven’t looked back! Appreciate the kind words!

[@boardsontables8924]

@@FostertheMeeple Awesome! My game cabinet is also home to some of our friends games!

[@bentex40]

Would be great to see some of the games played to see how the mechanics work and to get a better look at art style and layout.

[@FostertheMeeple]

Thank you for the suggestion!! We are trying to get better and better as we go.

[@hikki6478]

That was a great rendition of bacon pancakes ❤

[@FostertheMeeple]

Hahah much appreciated

[@gimpzilla]

I feel lucky I was introduced to Catan at a young age... Risk and Catan had annual matches in my house

[@FostertheMeeple]

Risk was a big one for me! And Axis and Allies going WAY back to my childhood haha

[@JonTripp115]

The Resistance is the first modern game that I remember playing; my gf at the time had a friend who Kickstarted it, and we played that a bunch. Also Cards Against Humanity when that was still new and edgy, haha. Then my nephew introduced my wife& me to Machi Koro and the chain reaction started from there.

[@FostertheMeeple]

Haha I think everyone had/has a phase where cards against humanity was hitting the table constantly. We actually played apples to apples a lot before Cards against Humanity came out. Machi Koro is a great game, definitely a good gateway game!

[@erikohman2294]

My family did play quite a bit of cards. Go fish and trick taking. Its not modern, but I did play a fair bit of chess. Chess got me in to Diplomacy. Wonderfull way to lose your friends! We would play it pretty much every weekend back in the days. Reminds me of a game of thrones, but with less randomness and less theme. Wonderful memories of pride and joy and betrayl. For a long time I was the guy who suggested munchkin. A friend of mine straight up gave me his expansion, sinse I would enjoy it more, and there is no way he would play it without me anyway. Also of course MTG. I started out Johnny but leaned more Spike over time. Improving my decks until they are no fun to play against is a problem.

[@FostertheMeeple]

I had a similar experience with MTG. Eventually I just could not compete with some of the decks my friends were building. Unstoppable! I have heard about Diplomacy and it’s ruthlessness - seems right up my alley!

[@gottimighty]

First "modern" board game i purchased was Castle Panic after watching Wil Wheaton play it on Tabletop. Its been downhill ever since 🤣🤣

[@FostertheMeeple]

It’s funny how quickly it snowballs!!

[@JohnnyMcNabb63]

Pandemic legacy got me back in.. got the wife playing a few games with Azul and ticket to ride

[@FostertheMeeple]

Love Azul!!! Honestly it is so nice to hear couples enjoying games together. We love it!!

[@mariusferreira1297]

Great video thank you so much 👍

[@FostertheMeeple]

Thank you!!!

[@edmundengland]

I really like your channel. Charm

[@FostertheMeeple]

Thanks so much Edmund!

[@remirez2k3]

just checked amazon for the pokemon game its now a 400.00 game

[@FostertheMeeple]

Wow!! Good thing we donated our copy! 😑😑

[@jkledis]

I am knew to your hobby and notice that you mention Zach a lot - I know he is not a cat - but not sure who he or Jason is - just friends?

[@malvinafis6907]

As far as I understood, both Zach and Jason are Jamies brothers who are also both in on the channel :)

[@FostertheMeeple]

Yes that is correct! We mention in earlier videos (perhaps it’s time to mention it again). Zach and Jason are Jamie’s brothers who do post content on the channel! Zachs handles all our painting content - and Jason does some smaller quick game reviews for us!

[@winstonhammonds3314]

Good stuff as always! A buddy and I just started a podcast as well, and we launched our first episode a couple of days ago. We talked about practically the same thing! If you’d like to check it out, you can find it here: m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/q6WapJt4p7WFmqs No pressure! : ) And Coup is great! My wife is ALWAYS the Duke. Even when she chooses to play without even looking at her cards until someone calls her out.

[@donorush]

CRIBBAGE!!!!

[@FostertheMeeple]

Oh man what a miss by me!!! Good call!

[@donorush]

@@FostertheMeeple I too was raised on crib.

[@FostertheMeeple]

@@donorush so many fond memories for me growing up. My dad and I still play when we are together!

[@donorush]

@@FostertheMeeple Same here. The only difference is I beat him every game now.