Bohnanza

Bohnanza is a card game about beans. Red beans, blue beans, coffee beans, stinky beans, and much more. The goal is to collect as much coin as possible. You do this through planting and harvesting your bean fields. Throughout the game you trade bean cards and sometimes it's adventageous just to give them away! You have to watch the order of your cards closely or you may get in a tight spot. This is a great game for all ages! It is easy to learn and only takes 30-45 minutes to play. You can play with up to 7 people which makes this a great group game.

There are a couple of different expansions you can get that add a variety of different ways to play the game.

Kill Doctor Lucky

Kill Doctor Lucky is kind of like Clue but instead of trying to find the murderer you are trying to kill Doctor Lucky. Everyone else is trying to beat you to it. The cards are hilarious and it is harder than you think. You can only attempt to kill him when no one else is looking. Your plans are continuously foiled (which isn't always a bad thing because you can hoard your spite)!

You can play up to 7 people, but I would recommend about 5. It usually takes about 40-60 minutes to play. This game is lots of fun with great creativity. There is also an expansion available called Kill Doctor Lucky...and His Little dog Too.

Blokus

Blokus is a fun game of shapes. It reminds me of Tetris. The goal is to get as many of your pieces on the board as you can. You have a variety of shapes to choose from ranging from a one cube piece up to several 5 cube pieces. Your pieces can only touch at an angle and cannot be flush with another of your pieces. You take turns placing your pieces and trying to get through the other players' play area as well as blocking people from playing in yours. This game is best with 4 people but there are 2 and 3 player variations. Average play time is about 20 minutes. Easy to learn, fast to play! You'll be hooked after the first time. There is also a travel 2 person version available as well as Trigon (which uses triangles instead of squares), a 3-D veresion, and you can play online as well.

The Construction Game

The Construction Game is very similar to The Farming Game. The Faming Game was frustrating because you started in debt and it was just one horrible catastrophe after another and you could never seem to get ahead (maybe this is much like actual farming). In any case The Construction Game is much more pleasant to play.

You start off with money (not in debt) and equipment. You move around the board much like Monopoly but each square is one week out of the year. You only take jobs if you want to and usually you make decent money. This game is not nearly as devestating as The Faming Game and also does not take near as long. The last game we played took about 2 hours with 4 of us playing. You play until someone reaches $1.5 Million in assets. This game has great strategy and with good purchases and a little luck from the dice you can easily dominate.