The best board games to play outside

The modern board game can seem huge and sprawling, making it difficult to imagine a larger table. Multi-session board games can have all of the story flair and complexity that a long-running tabletop role playing campaign would offer. These games can be delicate and fragile, and are often so fragile that a simple mistake could cause hours of tedious work. Not all board games can be like this. In fact, some are so small that you can tuck them into your shirt pocket and forget they’re even there.

Thanks to the incredible diversity of modern board games, summer break doesn’t mean taking a vacation from rolling dice with your friends. Here are five games that travel extremely well — including one that you can even safely play at the beach or poolside.

Deep Sea Adventure

Oink Games, a Japanese design company makes unforgettably beautiful products. Deep Sea AdventureA small-box board game in which you have to find treasure under the ocean floor. It’s family friendly, colorful, and easy to teach. But what’s important here is the fact that it’s not going to blow away the moment that you lay it down on the table.

The tiles are used to create paths for the players, which allow them to move their wooden pieces forwards and backwards from their treasure or submarine. It is easy to lose or damage the cards and pieces will stand out in the grass. This tiny bag can be easily slipped into any backpack, handbag, or glove pocket.

Deep Sea Adventure

Price at publishing time.

• 2-6 players, age 8+

• Playtime: 30 minutes

• Game type: Pick up and deliver

• Category: Push your luck-style games

• Similar games: Port Royal

Gloom

When I think about a durable and robust card game, I immediately think of Gloom. That’s because each and every card inside its tiny box is made of transparent plastic. And it’s that transparency that makes the game so much fun to play: The cards stack one on top of the other, adding to, subtracting from, or otherwise altering the characters in play. It’s a marvelous blend of form and function, and even if all of the pieces fall directly into a gutter, you can still hose them off and live to play another day.

Love Letter

Love Letter is the poster child for microgames — it tells a compelling mechanical story with just 16 (2-4 players) or 32 (5-8 players) cards.

This original design was created by Seiji Kaai. It was released in 2012. Love Letter rose to prominence in the United States with an edition published by AEG that came packaged in a trademark red felt bag with “Love Letter” embroidered on the side. Since then it’s been adapted to many different licenses, including, most recently, Star Wars. No matter the version, it’s always free. Love Letter’s exceptional risk and deduction-based gameplay is sure to please.

MicroMacro: Crime City

MicroMacro: Crime City An award-winning mystery board game which blends Where’s Waldo?With a real-crime novel and virtually no moving parts.

You can have fun playing hidden picture games with your friends by laying a poster on top of a flat surface. Just don’t think of it as a traditional board game that must be gobbled up competitively in a set amount of time. Instead, treat MicroMacro as you would a traditional jigsaw puzzle — something that sits on the table as a downtime activity for anyone who needs a break.

Tsuro

Finally, there’s TsuroA tile-laying and light strategy game called. Designed by Tom McMurchie, the game’s name comes from the Japanese word for “route.” In the game, players use their tiles to move their token from one side of the board to the other. The paths will change as they intersect. It is important to remain calm, take it all in stride, and keep going.

It’s another game with no flimsy cards to worry about, and with components heavy enough that they won’t blow away. The game also looks nice on the table. Bring this to the park and even the die-hard chess players making camp there will want to know what you’re up to.