I was asked on a photography forum to say a little more about the boardgaming hobby. Here was my response:
How do I start? Well, one could go to the website boardgamegeek.com, but that place is UI disaster until you get used it (totally designed by engineers!)
The best way to describe modern boardgaming is that it is an outgrowth of a lot of European (especially German) boardgame design from the 90’s and 00’s. Key features include a limited time length, no player elimination, and controlled interaction. In a word, anti-Monopoly (especially Monopoly as with its common house rules).
The top standard of German family boardgaming is a prize called the Spiel Des Jahres (SDJ) and which judges games at a medium light weight level of complexity. Unfortunately the crowd in hobby sites (like Boardgamegeek) tends to favor niche stuff so their database rankings favor heavy complicated stuff (similar to how photographers lust over L glass even though most other humans would be more interested in the latest bedazzled iphone 6s case).
Even though I consider myself a “serious” boardgamer, I personally don’t enjoy complicated fare. I grok the joy of a good brain burning puzzle, but I prefer the elegance of a pared down game where the interaction is the emergent outgrowth of an carefully curated set of simple rules.
Modern classics for people looking to get into the hobby would be Settlers of Catan (the big hit kickstarted this whole eurogame trend), Carcassonne, and Ticket to Ride (which got me back into the boardgaming hobby after a decade long hiatus). I would also want to point out Pandemic and Hanabi which are both excellent cooperative games (where everyone plays together as a team to beat the game system).