So you’ve got a place at university – congratulations! Now comes the fun part: moving in, making new friends, and of course, playing board games. And nothing breaks the ice faster than a board game that gets everyone talking and laughing.
Our picks don’t require a degree to learn but are affordable, easy to pack, and perfect for big groups. They’re entertaining, accessible, and guaranteed to get gamers and non-gamers alike involved. So, pull up a chair in the common room, grab a pint (or a glass of wine if you’re feeling fancy), and get ready to turn strangers into friends over a game.
Offshoots by Pete Bartlam
Offshoots is easy to carry, easy to play and easy to put away. Tense and rewarding in equal measures and easily adaptable to a whole range of drink related forfeits! I played it with a whole range of people at ZATUCON 25 who quickly became friends I hadn’t yet met! A game described as “A Creative Game of Balance” would normally put me off but it was great. This “green Jenga” quickly became a crowd pleaser as grand trees sprouted up only to eventually crash to the inevitable cries of Timber!
The compact box holds a 2 piece “trunk” and 75 wooden “leaves”. These glossy, green leaves are all identical, with 4 slots on one end and 2 on the other. Slot the leaf in on the 2-slot side, angled upwards with the 4-slot end on top, leaving plenty of options for what comes next. Keep adding leaves until it falls, and that’s basically it.
The winner is the last player who successfully placed a leaf before the fall. Though, heaven forbid, if you were playing Offshoots as a drinking game, you might just ask the one who caused the crash to drink up!
Carcassonne by David Ireland
The student landscape from what I’ve learned has changed a lot since the mid to late 00’s when I was a student. The binging nightlife culture (which I very much took part in) is on a decline and students are looking at other ways to spend their downtime. Board gaming is a great way to meet people and make those new connections.
Carcassonne, one of the pioneer modern board games and ever prevalent gateway game to the hobby is perfect for a group of students to sit around and play whilst getting to know each other. I owned Carcassonne before I became a student in 2007, and I deeply regret not taking it with me to university. Admittedly, society isn’t where it is now with openness, and I did not have the confidence in myself to introduce it to others as gaming was so niche.
Now, in 2025, you’ll likely find at least one board game café in every University town and city and they will almost certainly have a copy of Carcassonne to try. A game for 2-5 people where the highest score wins. Players take it in turns to draw and play a tile, then play a meeple in an effort to score points on roads, cities, monasteries and fields. Game play ends when the final tile is drawn, and the end count up begins. It’s as straightforward as that.
It’s an iconic game that never gets dull, it’s always competitive and always entertains. It can be played seriously at competition and tournament level or can be played in a relaxing way to unwind to. The mechanics are simple and after a few turns you’ll have a good understanding of the rules. After 1 game, you’ll want to start again and improve on the previous effort. The best part is, you’ll make some friends whilst playing. Give this one a go.
Doppelt So Clever by Neil Parker
There are many good games to take to university and it will depend on preferences and individual choice, but often what makes a good game are criteria like the ease of play, the fun element, cost and size of game.
Doppelt So Clever, (or Twice as Clever) is one of a series of similar games that meets these criteria. It is cheap, comes in a small box, easy to learn, yet has a degree of depth and replayability and is a lot of fun, plus it doesn’t take long to play, doesn’t take up a lot of space to play, works well with four players and can easily be brought out to play at a party, in the pub, or at home during a break to have a quick game.
It is definitely one of my go to filler games to pack when on a games holiday or a visit to the games club, and for these reasons I’d recommend it for university. As it comes in a series, starting with Ganz Schon Clever (That’s Pretty Clever), you can also consider buying more of the set for variation.
Flip 7 by Pete Bartlam
Simple, sociable, cheap and a likely involvement of alcohol? Yes, yes and yes! But that’s enough about me. What game should you take to university?
Flip 7, self-styled as “the greatest card game of all time”. Whilst that’s a bit of publishers’ hyperbole it is this year’s runner up for Game of the Year. What makes it so good and why should you put it in your backpack?
First, it’s simple. Easy to teach, easy to play. Just keep taking cards until you Stick or Bust. There are more of the high cards than the low ones. Get 2 numbers the same and you’re a goner. Second: sociable – as many players as you want. Turns are quick with everyone engaged watching as you push your luck.
Cheap: absolutely, for under a tenner you get 94 glossy cards in a snazzy box that will dazzle your friends! Though they do say if you have more than 15 playing buy a second deck!! Drinking: plenty of opportunities here. If you Flip 7 different numbers, you get a bonus and end the round so how about making everyone else drain their glass? Now that’s what I call ending the round.
Skull by Thom Newton
Skull is one of those games that you can play but still have a good conversation at the same time. It pairs well with a drink in your hand too. The idea of the game is very simple, players will play down their circular cards one by one until one player makes a bet to say how many they can flip over without revealing a skull. Each player starts the game with 3 flowers and one skull. Once a bet has been made, the other players can either raise the amount of cards to be flipped, or pass. Once there is only one player left betting they have to start flipping cards, with the extra rule that they have to flip everything they played in front of themselves first. If they manage to pull it off they get a point, if they don’t they randomly lose one of their cards. First to two points wins.
This game can have some excellent bluffs and really gives you a good opportunity to get to know how people think. Even better, after most rounds, everyone at the table will be excited to tell you what they did and why. Because of this I like to break out Skull when I’m just looking for a nice background game to introduce to people who may not be that familiar with boardgames outside the worlds of Monopoly and Scrabble. It’s simple to learn, doesn’t look intimidating and it gets people talking.
Love Letter by Dan Street-Phillips
Going away to university is about finding your tribe. Who are the people who like the films you like, or the books you love, who are the people who you are going to share a laugh with? It’s a lot of pressure! Well one thing that can alleviate that pressure is a small card game you can pop in your pocket before heading to the pub. One of my favourites is Love Letter.
In its original form, Love Letter is a game of picking a card and playing a card and trying to figure out who has what so you can eliminate them before they get you. It’s short and fun and it really allows you to put your personal guard down as you fight to put your gaming guard up! The best thing is that there are multiple versions to attract different tribes.
Play Jabba’s Palace if you want to attract the Star Wars fans, or Lovecraft Letter for your fellow cultists. You might take Princess Ever After in search of your LGBTQ+ allies or maybe Bridgerton as you take a walk around the ton. Whatever tribe you want to find, shove a copy of Love Letter into your pocket and you’ll find your people!
Fluxx by Sam de Smith
What game am I packing my spawn off to university with? That’s a tough one. It’s a bit of a cheat, actually, because he’s living at home, so the usual things of tiny, portable and / or pub friendly are less of an issue. So I’m picking FLUXX, the infinitely varied and incredibly chaotic card game. The regular game is just brilliant and is perfectly pocket sized, can be played with 2-6 and is exactly the right kind of daft. No rules and no way to win until someone plays a goal? Spot on. And there’s a version for every sort of interest, from Cats to Science to Zombies to Stoners… to Star Trek! Yes, stick all the versions of Trek together and have absolute nerd nonsense. How better to find your tribe? Kids these days, accepting of each other and their interests. Shocking! So – FLUXX away!
Uno by Rob Wright
I know I am probably going to get some grief for this, because I am picking a ‘mainstream’ game, but what’s so wrong about that? It’s straightforward to play, straightforward to win and it’s sold EVERYWHERE.
When/if you go to university, chances are you will know no-one; and everyone is in the same boat. If you’re in a shared residence, the only thing you may share in common is that you are of the human genus… and UNO. I can almost guarantee that if someone pulls out a pack of UNO, everyone will know how to play.
There are also so many different versions of UNO. For the pacifists, there’s All Wild; for the maniacs, there’s No Mercy. You can add a bit of Scout-style variety in Flip!, where both sides of the card have different actions and values, Teams where you play as teams (not on Teams). My favourite is Flex, where you get a power card that can get you out of tricky situations, but it has resulted in a two-hour-long game. Still shorter than a single game of Monopoly though, and less socially devastating – chances are, you’ll have to live with these people for the whole year…
Squid Game Ultimate Battle by Steve Conoboy
I’m not one for stereotyping. Honestly, I’m not. But if you’re a university student, then you’ll know every last corner of Netflix, and you’ll definitely know Squid Game. This game is the party version of that show, with less actual death (unless someone cheats). Roll the die, do the task: Quiz, Dare, Duel. Quiz is boring questions, the other two are mad games like throw crumpled bits of paper into the game box from 4 metres, or play scissors, rock, cloth, or balance a card on your nose and circle the table (and avoid the various hands that attempt to tickle you (poor sportsmanship!).
In my gaff we’ve watched the first season and managed to answer only one of the Quiz questions between us. So, second time round, we dropped the Quiz section and just rerolled for the mad Dares and Duels instead.
It’s cheap, it’s thematically on point, it’s meant for up to 6 players but don’t let that stop you, and it will play perfectly alongside those jelly shots you’ve prepared for the evening. You’ve got no chance of beating my four-metre trick shot, though. It involved a saucepan, a drawer handle and a cat. Have at it!
Ultimate Werewolf by Sophie Jones
This may not be the prettiest looking game, but it plays with up to 68 people, has loads of different modes, is cheap and incredibly portable.
Ultimate Werewolf is basically The Traitors if you’ve seen that show. Each player is dealt a card that gives them a role in the game. You might be a villager, the mayor, a tanner, the seer or of course a deadly werewolf. Over several rounds, characters wake at night, take an action and then face the consequences in the morning. Players then have to debate, accuse and argue until they work out who the werewolves are. Roles like the seer can be very helpful as they can peek at other players’ cards, but reveal yourself too early and you might just become the wolves’ next target.
I first played this at university during a Halloween party and it was the perfect choice for the time of year. With such a high player count everyone could get involved. You’ll need a game master to narrate the night-time events and keep everyone honest, but that role is fun too, especially if you go all out with the drama.
For a quicker option there is One Night Ultimate Werewolf, a compact version of the game that takes place over a single night. An app can run the game for you and it’s still great fun with plenty of players, but less intense since you only need to survive one round of accusations.
And really, is there a better way to make friends at university than shouting at each other, bluffing your way through a round and then laughing about your shared betrayals and victories?
So, if you’re heading to halls this October, why not pack a board game or two? They’re cheap, easy to carry and perfect for making memories. Best of all, it’s a reason for the whole dorm to gather, laugh, and let the card chaos unfold.
Enjoy your first year and remember to study too.
About the author:
Sophie is a gamer, blogger, podcaster, and book lover with a passion for solo narrative video games. When she’s not immersed in games or writing, she’s probably out hiking. Her favourite board games feature worker placement, nature themes, and smart tableau-building mechanics.
