Our favorite board games for families that you can buy in Switzerland to avoid high import costs. A nice indoor activity for rainy days and winter.
Board games are a great way to connect with family and friends during winter, instead of everyone sitting in a separate corner on their own devices. When shopping for board games, it can be frustrating because many recommended games are not available in Switzerland or cost too much to import. So here are some of our favorite games that you can actually buy in Switzerland. I hope you find something you like.
Where to shop for board games in Switzerland?
All the big department stores (like CoopCity, MMM Migros, Manor), toy stores, and book stores like Orell Füssli sell board games. But if you are in Zürich and want a more interesting selection, I suggest shopping at the store Rien Ne Va Plus in Zürich, near the Grossmünster (Oberdorfstrasse 34 8001 Zürich). They have a huge variety of games, sometimes the English versions. They are also helpful in guiding you to unfamiliar games that you might like.
For online shopping inside Switzerland (to save shipping costs & time), try Galaxus or Orell Füssli. If you want to order English versions of the games, your best option is Amazon.de or Amazon.co.uk.
What to do if the games are in German only?
If you buy in Switzerland, you usually have to buy the game in German (or French). This can be challenging if your German language skills aren’t great, but also a fun way to learn German if you’re motivated. If you do buy the German version, you can often find the rules and card descriptions online in English and print them out, which is what we do. One helpful site is GameRules.com.
- Unstable Unicorns
Unstable Unicorns was our new favorite game of 2021. You collect cards to build your Unicorn army and play other cards to attack other players, preventing them from building their unicorn army. It’s pretty easy to learn. I like that the tables turn quickly, so typically no one player dominates the game. The illustrations are so fun and creative; I’d have fun just browsing through the cards and not even playing.
Age: 8+
Players: 2 – 8
Duration: 30 – 60 minutes
- Wingspan (aka Flügelschlag)
This is a card driven, engine building game, where you gather birds into your habitat in order to win the most points. We got this game for Christmas 2020 and it’s become a go-to game for our family. It’s a little complicated to learn and requires a lot of reading to judge the value and usefulness of the bird cards on offer. Honestly the first two games we played weren’t super fun because there were so many aspects of the game to learn. But once we figured out the basic strategy, we really enjoyed it and frequently choose this one to play together. I like that it has a good balance between strategy and luck, so our clever teens can’t completely dominate the game, at least yet.
Age: 10+
Players: 1 – 5
Duration: 40 – 70 minutes
- The Crew
This is a cooperative trick-taking game where you work together to complete a series of “missions.” For example, the mission might say that Player 1 needs to take a trick with a specific card (like blue 3), Player 2 must take the green 5 and first trick of the round, and Player 3 must take the pink 8 card. But during the game, players cannot chat to discuss strategy. So it can be very tricky to complete the mission!
There are 50 missions of increasing difficulty and we’ve only made it up to level 15 so far. But you can replay any mission as many times as you like. I love that you can easily play as short or long as you like, as each round only takes a few minutes. If you’re having fun, just play more rounds. Download the rules in English.
Age: 10+
Players: 3 – 5
Duration: 20 minutes
- Port Royal
We play this game so often that I’m surprised we haven’t tired of it yet. It’s a press-your-luck game, where you flip cards to gather money and buy special abilities, ultimately trying to get enough victory points to win the game. But if you flip over the wrong card and haven’t bought enough defenses, you lose your turn. It’s fairly easy to learn, but takes some strategy to do it well. The game takes about about 30-40 mins, so not a big time commitment.
Age: 8+
Players: 2 – 5
Duration: 20 – 50 minutes
- Silver & Gold
This is a “flip-n-write” game, where you flip over cards and mark off the shapes on your own cards to gather points. I like this game when we need something calm where no one’s feeling will get hurt. No attacking others in this game. You just focus on your own game and hope you get the most points in the end. I also like Silver & Gold because not one person in the family tends to dominate this game, meaning everyone feels like they have a chance (not always the case). It’s also a good game for non-readers to play with their older siblings.
Age: 8+
Players: 2 – 4
Duration: 20 minutes
- Dominion
This game is a modern classic and my favorite game that we own. I like that it changes every time you play it because you choose a different set of cards to play with. It’s a deck building game, where you buy cards with special powers, then later use those cards to buy more cards. Ultimately you are trying to collect enough victory points to win the game.
But there are all sorts of fun strategies along the way. It takes playing a few times to get the rhythm so you can try to win intentionally. It has tons of expansion packs that add twists and more special ability cards. We have Seaside and Prosperity, both of which we like. There are a few strategies that tend to dominate the game every time. But you can choose to play without those cards to make game play more even. When we first started playing, I found it really helpful to print out the card descriptions in English.
Age: 13+
Players: 2 – 4
Duration: 30 minutes
- Diceland
This is a “roll and write” game, where you mark off tiles in your board matching the results of the dice. You are creating paths to collect 9 treasures to win the game. It’s super simple to learn, good for non-readers, but still fun for older kids and adults. It’s different each time you play because of the randomness of rolling. We often choose this as quick “bring the family together” game because there are no ruthless elements that make people sad.
Age: 8+
Players: 2 – 4
Duration: 20 minutes
- Just One
Just One is a word guessing game, an easy choice for a short family activity or parties. On each turn, all players except one see a secret word then write a related word on their dry-erase easel, to help the person sitting out guess the word. But if two people write the same word, they cancel each other out and the guesser doesn’t get to see their word. Lots of laughs every time we play this game. It’s super simply to learn so it’s great for a party where you want people that don’t know each other very well to interact (let’s wait for after the pandemic for that though). I’ll bet you could play a version of this on Zoom pretty easily.
Age: 8+
Players: 3 – 7
Duration: 20 minutes
- Machi Koro
This is a deck-building game, where you buy properties to build up your city, including four landmarks that win the game. We like to play because it’s fun to collect the various cards and see if we get lucky on the rolls. But it can get frustrating if you get on an unlucky streak and fall way behind. After many months of happy play, my oldest figured out a strategy that wins almost every time (I won’t tell, you’ll have to figure that out yourself). So we got the Big City expansion set, which kept the game interesting. FYI, the Fussball version is not an expansion, but rather exactly the same as the base game, just football related names.
Age: 10+
Players: 2 – 4
Duration: 30 minutes
- Hive
This is a two player game where the players try to capture their opponent’s queen by moving their pieces around each other. Each tile is an insect with a special power. For example, the grasshopper can jump over pieces, the spider can bounce around three spaces instead of the normal one space. You can buy expansion insects with other abilities. It’s a quick game, usually about 10-15 minutes, so we often play a few rounds. It’s small and light, good for travel.
Age: 9+
Players: 2
Duration: 20 minutes