Im familiar enough with board games to know that I’m asking a lot here. My goal is to have a game that I can carry around with me, walk up to people I meet in public, and ask them to play.
The most obvious path here I thought of would be some type of game played with a standard deck of cards. While I’m not opposed to this, I fear the randomness that comes with that might not be what I’m looking for. I want the game to be strategic with minimal luck but simple enough that a first time player could reasonably win against someone experienced.
Something like Hive comes to mind, as it has the pocket variation and seems like it could be easy enough to teach, but I have yet to play it so I fear it might be daunting to newcomers in ways similar to chess.
Thank you in advance for any and all answers, and if you would like further clarification I’d be happy to elaborate!
Hanamikoji could be a good option.
What’s funny is I own this game already and it’s in my top three yet the strategy is so deep I hadn’t even considered this until now! Now that you mention it though it is light and takes up little space, the actions are practically displayed on the tiles, and despite not having perfect information you’d have enough information to deduce what the best move would be while still having enough randomness that an inexperienced player has the ability to make a “comeback”. This game just keeps getting better lol