7 Wonders

This game for 3 to 7 players was created by Antoine Bauza in 2010 and originally published by Repos Production in Belgium. 7 Wonders is a card drafting game set around constructing the 7 wonders of the ancient world. Resources are traded to enhance your resource holdings while building your wonder; miltary strength is an additional element. The game is one of the highest rated games on the board game discussion website BoardGameGeek. It has won a total of more than 30 gaming awards, including the inaugural Kennerspiel des Jahres connoisseurs' award in 2011. The game has been cited by leading designers as one of the most influential board games of the last decade.

And you can add six expansions: Armada, Babel, Cities, Edifice, Leaders and Wonder Pack.

The Armada expansion is a significant addition to the game.

There is a duet version called 7 Wonders Duel, and you can add two expansions: Agora and Pantheon.

Here is a good introductory video to 7 Wonders.

Source: Wikipedia

Scotland Yard: Hunting Mr. X

This is a deduction game that involves hunting for a spy in London. One person acts as the spy while the other players are detectives on the chase.

Produced by Ravensburger, it was the 1983 Spiel des Jahres Winner.
Here is a video giving an overview of the game.

Click to view video

Scrabble

One of the most popular games of all time that was, like Monopoly, invented during the Great Depression (in 1938). Alfred Butts invented the game based on the popularity of crossword puzzles at the time.

Scrabble is produced by Hasbro.

Clue: The Classic Detective Game

In 1943, Anthony E. Pratt of Britain developed the murder-mystery game Clue (called Cluedo in Britain); commercial production began in 1949. Clue has been one of the most popular board games ever produced.

The game of Clue may have been partially developed from an older American card game called “The King of Hearts Has Five Sons.” In that game, two cards are set aside and the object of the game is to be the first to identify them. A player asks another player if he holds certain cards. If that player has any of those cards, he secretly shows one of those cards to the player who asked the question. Players could keep track of the card requests on paper. These are major aspects of playing Clue.

See this interesting article on Clue and other “deduction” games.

Originally produced by Waddingtons in the UK and Parker Brothers in the U.S. and Canada, both were bought by Hasbro. There is also a smaller card-based version than is good as a travel version of the game.

Detection Games

Detection board games have been around at least since Clue which was introduced in 1943 (though that is thought to have been partially based on a much older card game called The King of Hearts Has Five Sons). Over the years more have been created. Some use the basic Clue game play with some additions, others include more roll-play and involve each player establishing their characters, up to full roll playing games such as the How To Host a Murder series (all 18 of them).

Clue

Scotland Yard

Inkognito

Adventure Games: Monochrome Inc.

Mysterium

Covert

Detective: City of Angels

Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

Orient Express

Letters From Whitechapel

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: The Baker Street Irregulars
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: Carlton House & Queen's Park
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: Jack the Ripper & West End Adventures
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: The Thames Murders & Other Cases

221B Baker Street: The Master Detective Game

Betrayal at House on the Hill

How To Host A Murder: The Last Train From Paris

How To Host A Murder: The Last Train From Paris

Not a board game, but a role playing game in which each “player” inhabits the role of the various characters in the murder mystery. Each person has a guide outlining their characters back-story and their place in the mystery.
In this case, a murder on a luxury train reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s, Murder on the Orient Express. 

How To Host A Murder

Role guides and script with train layout

Created and produced by Decipher Inc.

Trivial Pursuit

This trivia knowledge game was invented in Canada and began production in 1981. It became one the biggest selling board games of all time, with over 100 million produced by 2014. The questions test players knowledge on six categories: history, entertainment, geography, arts & literature, science & nature, and sports & leisure.

Besides the original edition, over 80 versions and additions have been made since 1981 such as Star Wars, Harry Potter, and The Lord of the Rings. Now produced by Hasbro.

Ticket to Ride

One of the biggest selling games of the last 15 years has been Ticket to Ride. As of 2024 18 million copies of the game have been sold. It was invented by British game designer Alan R. Moon and won many prestigious game awards in 2004 and 2005, including the 2004 Spiel des Jahres.

Game play consists in building railways to connect destinations on a map. The game is considered to be very easy to learn.

The original game was for North America (actually, the U.S. and Canada). It was followed shortly with Europe, then Germany, Rails & Sails and the Nordic Countries. Those are complete games, but there are many expansion available that provide new map boards and destination cards, variations on the rules, and sometimes additional components. (Note that the base game and most expansions are for 2-5 players, except Nordic Countries which is for 2-3 players. Numbers in brackets below indicate the player counts of the expansions that are other than 2-5.) Asia (4 or 6) & Legendary Asia, Poland (2-4), Japan & Italy, India (2-4) & Switzerland (2-3), The Heart of Africa, Nederland, United Kingdom (2-4) & Pennsylvania, France & The Old West (2-6 players). The expansion packages are used with the full (base) versions like TTR original and TTR Europe. The city based games are all stand-alone: Amsterdam, Berlin, London, New York City, and San Francisco. Ticket to Ride First Journey is a beginner version geared toward younger players. TTR - The Card Game is a much smaller version that would be a good travel version of the game.

TTR has teamed with Amazon to allow Alexa to be used as an additional player for the original TTR and TTR Europe.

TTR - Original

TTR Ride Europe

TTR Rails & Sails

TTR Nordic Countries

TTR Europe map and playing pieces

TTR Original

Actor Wil Weaton has a YouTube series on board games. He has a video on the original Ticket to Ride and on Ticket to Ride Europe.

Ticket to Ride video

Ticket to Ride Europe video

Expansions card packs for the games are available called USA 1910 for the original game and Europa 1912 for the Europe game. These are larger cards (closer to standard playing card size) that add more destinations and routes and a few variations in game play. Europa 1912 expands game play even further with the addition of warehouses and depots.

USA 1910

Europa 1912

See details on all the Ticket to Ride games including downloadable rules at the Days of Wonder website.