Gaming on the go isn’t always easy withtabletop games. Portable consoles are more accessible for traveling than large boxes or many pieces. Not every board game requires big packaging, though. Many games come in smaller formats or were designed with travel in mind.
If you often head to a friend’s place for game night or attend your local game store’s events, having a selection of games always at hand is a must. Whether you use a dedicated game bag or keep a backpack in tow, these are the best titles to leave inside. All these games will fit easily and provide plenty of fun despite their size.
The Best Portable Board Games To Toss In Your Bag
Hive Pocket
Experience the best in abstract strategy with no board to carry
Hive Pocket brings the amazing tactical bug game with its best expansions piled into one convenient bag. With high-quality game tiles and no need for a board, Hive can easily be played anywhere with two players.
If you’ve got a friend and a roughly flat space, you can have a great game with Hive Pocket. Easily winning the title of best portable game for two players, it has everything you’d want in a travel game. Everything is in a compact bag, and the game has no board, which means you can play on any surface.
The game tiles are sturdy, so they won’t be damaged by a rough play area, and wind will never cause issues. With Hive Pocket including the Ladybug and Mosquito pieces, the tactical depth is in full force. Moving your pieces within the constraints of the hive to surround your opponent provides endless strategic fun.
Although this only provides fun for two each piece moves in unique ways and the vast replayability makes up for that downside. Hive keeps itself easy to learn yet offers years' worth of potential study should you master it. Overall, this is the best play anywhere title, and it more than deserves its space.
Sushi Go!
Craft your sets of sushi with tactical and tasty picks
Gather round for pick-and-pass fun as you build up a deck of sushi cards to score the most points. Two to five players pass hands, choosing their best chance for victory each time. Just keep watch to not provide your opponents with the cards they need.
Need it portable and need more than two players? Sushi Go is your next game on the move. While best at three to five players, Sushi Go can handle more than that and makes an excellent group game. With pick-and-pass play, you’ll build a deck of sushi to score points and limit your opponent’s choices.
Because the players all see the cards going around the table, you can utilize a surprising amount of strategy for such a simple card game. Making sets of sushi like tempura will score you great points, but you must complete each set, and if the table knows you want them, you can be sure they won’t make it back to you.
Once again the rules are easy to pick up for new players and the game plays fine almost anywhere. The only downside is those who want extra protection will have to order special sleeves as the cards are non-standard. Sushi Go is an excellent choice of card game and comes in a compact metal tin, a perfect pairing for a fun traveling game.
Vaalbara
Contend for the best lands with tactical character selection
Vaalbara brings a world of beauty and fantasy to tableau-building gameplay. With exciting choices of strategy at every turn, you’ll need to plan ahead and deduce the other player’s goals to win.
Many tabletop gamers enjoy a good tableau builder; selecting cards from an array and building up resources is a satisfying gameplay loop that’s tried and true. However, tableau titles can be unwieldy in size or require a larger investment than other games, but not all of them suffer these downsides.
Vaalbara is a primeexample of a tableau builderthat breaks through to provide an amazing gameplay experience in a small box, all at a great price. Even when presented against larger and more expensive games, Vaalbara can hold its ground, meaning you don’t lose good gameplay when playing a travel-sized game.
You claim land for your tableau by playing out characters that are all chosen simultaneously. Cards come with an initiative, meaning the lower the number, the better the chance to pick first, but slower cards have sweeter abilities. Balancing strong plays against fast ones brings engaging tactical choices to every turn.
Vaalbara’s size and price haven’t affected its production quality or variety of play, making it hard to find any negatives aside from personal taste.
Skull: Place, Bid, Bluff
Slide half-truths and winning hands past your friends
Even your tone and level your eyes as you build the highest stack of cards. With the right words you can slip a game-losing skull past the table, or cause a chain of chaotic deduction.
Games of bluff are a classic for parties and group fun, easily shown by the number ofsocial deduction gamesavailable to deceive your fellow players. Skull focuses on the excitement of bidding gameplay similar to some card and dice games where you may fake your way to victory.
Bids are for the number of flowers you believe are on the table, should you end up with the highest bid you get to reveal discs for the round win. You aim to read the table and see how far you may push the bid, however, if you misread the room you could be forced to reveal a skull.
The game can feel like a tense hand of Poker, wondering if another player placed flowers to win a hand, or is trying to trick you into revealing their skull.
Players always begin revealing with their own stack, if you push your luck trying to force a skull on others it could backfire. Deception games can put groups off sometimes, so be sure the mood is friendly before opening your backpack. Skull offers a lot of group fun in its small box, making it an easy fit for your game bag.
Kluster
Enjoy a quick game of skill as the pressure rises
Bring a steady hand if you want to play Kluster, a tactile dexterity game of emptying your magnets onto the table. Every piece in the rope makes the following placements more difficult as you avoid capturing more than you can handle.
It can be nice to get away from cards and tactical choices and play something that’s a simple expression of skill. Dexterity games come in a wide array of adding, removing, or launching objects generally demanding precise action from players.
With Kluster your goal seems simple, place all your stones inside the rope. The trick is that every stone is magnetic, and they love to jumble up plans. Any pieces that cluster on your turn have to be picked up, meaning more stones you have to find space for.
Carefully laying your rocks is a tense moment, hoping it is just far enough to avoid bunching up. Kluster is easy to play and makes for quick and engaging games. Since it comes in a bag and just needs flat space it’s as portable as Hive Pocket, which makes it a great choice for an always-at-hand game.
Star Realms
Show the might of your forces and conquer the stars
Deckbuilding in space comes to your game bag with Star Realms. As commander of your fleet, build the stronger force and overcome your foe with engaging strategy play. Star Realms supports two players, and multiple decks or expansions can be used together for more fun.
Deckbuilding games are an exceptional choice for replayable titles with a lot of depth, but they can be bulky and often expensive. Star Realms breaks the mold as a deck builder that’s great on the go. It offers the full deckbuilding experience you love in the space of a single-deck box.
You play a commander building the mightiest fleet of ships to overcome the enemy; all the familiar mechanics of gaining resources to supplement your deck with better cards are present. Star Realms doesn’t hold back, letting you push for an aggressive style with quick attacks without the need for a long startup phase.
The game moves at a great pace and supports a variety of playstyles and strategies. Unfortunately, Star Realms does have a weakness due to its size, with a single deck it only plays with two. It is well worth its price tag, multiple decks for higher player counts cost less than an average deckbuilding title.
Fans of deckbuildingcan further invest in Star Realms with expansions, allowing for new plays and solving the two-player issue without needing multiple decks. As one of the smallest games listed here, it can be added to any size of mobile game collection with ease.
Order Overload Cafe
Don’t let orders get forgotten in the chaotic cafe
A coop memory game that is great for groups and parties where a keen mind and good cross-talk will win the day. The variety of goods keeps you on your toes as multiple orders to track fly by every round.
Not all game days need to be competitive, there are a lot of fantastic games that are cooperative experiences. Order Overload is another excellent compact find, this time the genre is memory gameplay. A slew of orders will come through and the players need to recall them all without mistakes.
Thankfully, a wrong guess here or there doesn’t ruin the round. Players can still help discuss what they remember after a flop, and in tough spots, you’re able to lean on players with sharp recall. When a round starts, you feel ready, but when faced with an array of cafe items, it’s easy to second guess what you heard.
Order Overload Cafe is aperfect party game, it offers group fun without competitive stakes and is an excellent game to pick up and play. Because it lacks any complex rules you can start quickly even with new players. When building your perfect collection of portable games, you won’t regret including this in the bag.
FAQ
What Makes A Board Game Portable?
The main factor in a board game being easy to carry is its size and weight. Large box games with heavy parts are a poor choice for a portable game due to the unwieldy nature of carrying them. Another important consideration is whether the game requires certain circumstances to play well.
Games with many small pieces and paper cards can be difficult to play on the go, and pieces that can be easily damaged will not hold up in less ideal environments. Sturdy pieces and fewer small parts to keep track of are good signs of a portable game.
Are Smaller Or Portable Games Less Fun?
Many tabletop fans prefer the smaller versions of games, a contained experience without anything unnecessary can be very satisfying. Just as budget or indie board games can still offer incredible experiences portable board games can offer the same fun.
If your board game preferences trend towards large grand strategy and expansive games then it will be difficult to find that in a small package. Your gaming preferences should be the major decider of what games you add to your collection. No matter what you like in board games, there is likely a similar feeling in a portable game somewhere!
