I had five extra people in my house for just around three weeks and we played games on every night except four. I thought it would be an interesting exercise to list how I feel they ranked the games they played (they didn't get through my whole collection) just based on engagement and enjoyment (I didn't ask them to fill out a survey) as to compare with how I've ranked things previously.
From worst to best:
Pandemic - too slow at 7 players and virus cube thing not just cutting it. Loss.
Kiri-ai: The Duel - seats only 2. too obtuse and hard to compete with other games that seat more.
Police Precinct - slow at 6 player and too easy. Win.
Operation Flash Point - 3 player. Was OK but too simple. Win.
Squid Game - 3 player. Better recieved than I thought, but too luck based.
Forbidden Desert - 4 player. Another mostly luck based game. Loss. My components here are getting frayed from years of play. :P
Ra - 5 player. Just "ok". Hasn't been rating high for any of my groups compared to the online accolades.
Horrified - 5 player. Fun and funny but still too slow for some.
Atlantis Rising - 8 player. Seats many is a plus but goes a bit long.
Magic Maze - 8 player giggle fest, but got old after 2 games.
The Crew: Mission Deep Sea - 4 player mind wreck. Good but headaches occur over time.
Jaws - 4 player might have rated higher if the shark didn't win, but I'm a pretty good shark. :P
The Grizzled - 4 player multi victory. It was easy mode though as I forgot that multi supports cancel out
Lord of the Rings Duel - rated high with the visiting chess player even though he lost to his mom
Mikado "Pickup Sticks" / Jack stone / Tortoise Tumble - physical games enjoyed by many
Mancala - since its much like Sungka it was enjoyed by the visiting Sungka champ who won a lot
El Grande - 4 players. By the time they were working out the strategy it was too late to catch the run away victor (me)
Black Orchestra - 4 players. Chess player killed Hitler hitting 4 out of 4 dice. OMG.
Risk: Elder Scrolls V - Skyrim - 4 player. Wifey won on victory points followed by chess man. My heroes were super short lived. :P
Darts - 3 players, round the world. My wife is too good at this. :P
The Mind - 8 players. Hilarious and always a good party game.
Klask - fast paced "air hockey" with magnets is always a winner. Seating only 2 is its downside.
Chess - well. When there's a chess player in the house, of course this ranks high. Been awhile since the board got this much use. I lost one blitz as white and won one long game as black using the Caro-Kann.
Escape from Colditz - 6 players. POWs escaped the German guards (played by me) and good fun was had by all. Being too long is its down side.
Lords of Waterdeep - 4 player. Awesome, and my wife still rules this game.
Crokinole - Fun, fast and seats four. There's a reason its my most played game.
Sequence - 6 players. The game they liked the best is something I didn't really rate as being that great.
Just goes to show that different games appeal to different people!
