Had enough of Netflix? Why not grab a board game if you're bored in lockdown?

The pub and restaurants are out, and there are no gigs or shows to go to.

So now we’re back in lockdown, what better way to sit it out than by trying your hand at a board game or two?

Of course, there are always the old standards to fall back on – Monopoly, Cluedo, chess and the like. But there is also a bewildering array of games out there – whether you want to play alone or with friends and family – and whether you want to play with or against those friends and family, there really is something for everybody.

Since opening two years ago, Dice Board Game Lounge in Albert Road, Southsea, has become a hub for fans of the popular pastime. It has a library of more than 800 games to choose from.

General manager Julian Hood has been there since it opened, and has an encyclopaedic knowledge on the subject.

One of the key attractions of board gaming and its recent rise is the community aspect, but with lockdown Dice has had to close again. It is, however, offering a click and collect service until it can reopen.

As Julian explains: ‘Games broadly fall into two categories, competitive or cooperative. In a competitive game, you're playing against the other players, and there are sub-categories of that.

‘In a cooperative game you and the other players are actually a team playing against the game, and so the game has interlinked mechanisms which effectively allow it to play against you, so it's almost like an interactive puzzle.

‘The cooperative games have been really popular in lockdown because it's a nice alternative, especially with a family.

‘You don't have to worry about the youngest getting upset that they're being picked on by the older brother, and it also helps with the disparity in age and faculty, having everybody working together – it means you either win together or you lose together.’

One of the most popular titles of recent months, perhaps fittingly, is a cooperative game for up to four players called Pandemic, first released in 2008.

‘You and the other players are members of the CDC based out of Atlanta and you're going around the world trying to find cures for these four diseases running rampant. There's a legacy version of that game where each time you play represents a month in this year and you're trying to deal with all of these things – there are all these plot twists, it's a wonderful game.’

Two-player games are also popular, says Julian: ‘There’s lots of couples at home, can't go out. It makes a nice difference from sitting on the couch watching Netflix. Whether it's a cooperative game or a really good competitive game – whether they're really aggressive, in-your-face ones where what you do is directly negatively impacting on your opponent, or slightly more relaxed ones, where it's more akin to a multi-player solitaire and you do tangentially interact with each other, but for the most part you're each playing your own optimisation puzzle, racing against the clock and the other player more than directly attacking them.’

Good examples of combative games are competitive card games (CCGs) Keyforge, or the ever-popular Magic: The Gathering.

‘For us here, the big two-player games are something like Raptor,’ adds Julian, ‘it's designed as a two-player-only game where one player controls a team of scientists, and the other a team of dinosaurs.’

The former must try to capture the latter, while the latter wins by eating the scientists or escaping the field of play.

‘Games of that style, they get exponentially better the more you play it with the same person – it becomes all about the mind-games between you and the other player.

‘Rules-wise, I can probably teach you it in about two-three minutes, but mastery of it takes a lot longer.’

There’s also the question of whether you want a game of pure skill, or one with an element of chance.

‘Chess, for example, is what's referred to as a perfect information abstract, this means that the better player will always win.

‘There's no randomness in the game at all, no chance at all, the more skilled player will always win. A lot of modern designs, to varying degrees, are designed to soften that a little, so even with a skill disparity there is still a chance for either player to win which makes a lot of the games much more approachable.

‘It's very difficult with a game like say, chess, to sit there and play it repeatedly over-and-over with the same person because the stronger player always wins, and that gets draining and disheartening.

‘However, having a game where you feel like you have a chance, you can get much more invested and enjoy it a lot more.

‘A lot of the really exciting modern games revolve around that principle, so if you're a skilled player you still have a better chance of winning, but it doesn't guarantee it.

‘On the other side, you have people who don't want the randomness at all – they want the pure strategy.’

And Julian’s recent personal favourites?

‘I tend to get very excited about games which have interesting twists on the mechanics.

‘The more games you play, the easier it is to pick up new games because you get a feel for the underpinning mechanics behind what makes them work.

‘As you start to see the point of commonality between different games, seeing these tried and tested mechanisms used in new ways is really fascinating.

‘There's a game called Detective, it's a cooperative game, you and the other players are detectives – the game is set up with a crime scene and you're going through it, interviewing witnesses, and looking at evidence and trying to solve these crimes.

‘They've just brought out a streamlined new edition of it, which gives you three different cases and one of them has a real Agatha Christie/Poirot feel to it.

‘At the other end of the spectrum, there's a little game called Ankhor, an incredibly compact two-to-four player game where you're building a tableau of tiles, trying to link together different colours and types to score points.

‘It's wonderfully Egyptian-themed, lovely little components – but a lot of game in a tiny package.’

Other recommendations.

* Two-player only: Jaipur; Raptor

* Two to four players, ‘simple rules but deep gameplay’: Ankhor; Splendor; Azul; Qwirkle

* Family games: Ticket To Ride, ‘bin your copy of Monopoly, every home should have this instead,’ says Julian; Jamaica; Catan, ‘the game which started the modern movement’; Pandemic; Forbidden Island; Detective; Escape The Dark Sector.

* ‘Light and fast’ family games: Cobra Paw; P for Pizza; Geistes Blitz, ‘the king of all speed games’; Herd Mentality; Just One, winner of the presitgious 2019 Spiel des Jahres.

For more information go to: diceportsmouth.selz.com, or facebook.com/SouthseaModelsandGames.