Now that summer and vacation are behind us, I want to share some games that made our train trip to Norway extra fun! When we packed our bags, we had one main criterion: the games needed to take up as little space as possible while still offering a lot of fun. Here are the games that got the most playtime during our trip!

Kingdom Legacy - This game might not look like much, but it quickly became the most played game of our vacation. It was designed by Jonathan Fryxelius and is originally intended as a solo game, but we played it with two players and had a great time discussing our choices. If you’re not familiar with legacy games, it means that the game evolves permanently over time—choices you make in one round will affect future sessions. In Kingdom Legacy, the cards are divided into four sections, two on the front and two on the back. For example, the top section on the front might depict a forest. If you choose to cut down the forest, you’ll gain three wood to use in that round, but you’ll have to rotate the card 180 degrees, revealing a clear-cut area in future rounds. However, you can pay a coin to rotate the card back to the forest side.

This mechanic, where you rotate cards to unlock different upgrades or influence the game, is very well executed and makes playing Kingdom Legacy exciting. There are various goals to pursue, and a few expansions are included in the box, so there’s a lot of gameplay packed into a small package—perfect for playing on a small train table!

Regicide - This is a cooperative game for 1-4 players, but it’s especially recommended for two players. You can play it with a standard deck of cards, but it’s more enjoyable and easier to learn with the official game deck. The face cards, from Jack to King, are enemies. You play cards from your hand to deal damage, heal damage you’ve taken, draw new cards, and trigger other effects. The challenge is that each suit has its own special ability; for example, clubs double the attack against enemies, but enemies of the same suit, like the Jack of Clubs, are immune to that ability. So, should you sacrifice your clubs against club enemies or save them to defeat the Jack of Hearts more quickly?

Regicide is a great example of a timeless game that quickly draws you in. The goal is to defeat all the Jacks, then the Queens, and finally the Kings, and it really feels like an achievement when you succeed.

Ganz Schön Clever - A game that I often jokingly describe as a fun variant of Yahtzee. It’s not entirely accurate, but it’s a good starting point if you’re unfamiliar with the game. All you need to play this is the game itself, six dice, one pen per player, and a score sheet—definitely something you can play on the go. The goal is to fill in your score sheet as cleverly and efficiently as possible, but the tricky part is that when you choose a die, all the dice with lower values are removed from the game. Choose carefully—a green six might be tempting, but it could also leave you with no dice left to roll on your next turn.

You have three rolls in total, so you’ll choose three dice per round. The dice you don’t choose are then available for your opponents to select, which adds a bit of waiting time to the game. The heart of Ganz Schön Clever is the score sheet. Instead of filling in rows like in Yahtzee, you fill in different colored areas, each of which functions as a mini-game. In the purple area, for example, you must always write a higher number in a row until you reach a six, allowing you to start your sequence over. The common thread in all areas is the ability to unlock bonuses. These bonuses can be end-game points or the ability to mark off another area on your score sheet. This way, you can trigger satisfying chain reactions and little dopamine hits.