Animal Upon Animal

How:

The floor, or a very steady table, and a small child or three.

What:

A cute, simple balance game, with small wooden animals stacked based on dice rolls. Think 'Toddler's first Jenga' with a little jolt of randomness.

Who:

Kids with enough fine motor control to stack small blocks or shapes on top of each other, and the adults who love them. Two to four players, or one curious kid with time on their hands.

Where:

Your friendly local game store, or Amazon ($22).

Why:

Simple rules that a three year old can handle. A first exposure to turn taking and dice-based action. Adorable, sturdy, satisfying wooden pieces. A game that both my kids requested playing again and again. This is easily my favorite gateway game for the three and four year old set, with no reading at all required.

Elements

How:

Web browser, mouse only.

What:

Customizable card game, similar to Magic The Gathering or many others, in which you create a deck and then play cards as you draw from your deck. Twelve elements make for many strategies, whether using only one or two 'colors' or blending all of them at once.

Who:

Play Elements if you like card games where you think about deck building but also card selection and timing.

Where:

Online at ElementsTheGame

Why:

Starts off simple, gets very rich in strategy. Twelve areas to focus on, with two-color decks being common and powerful, meaning many possible options to explore. This game has a variety of tough AI opponents, a long advancement curve for boosting your deck's power, and some very creative player vs player modes, both simultaneous and asynchronous.

Civlization 5, from Firaxis and Sid Meier

I'm a longtime fan of Sid Meier's games and the Civilization series specifically. No surprise in my mind that the latest game is quite good.

How:

Buy it from Amazon, or Steam.

What:
Turn based, deep strategy, timeless classic computer game. Guide your country from the Stone age through the Internet age, seeking to achieve dominance through diplomacy, culture, might or science.

Who:
Play Civ 5 if you like turn-based strategy, resource management, simulation and replayability. Play if you want to conquer the world, learn a wee bit of history, and see what happens when the Maya drop a nuke on the Assyrians in 2012 and then land on Alpha Centauri to win!

Where:
On your Mac or Windows computer.

Why:
The Civilization games offer very high replayability, with each culture (whether Assyria, Maya, Venice) providing different quirks, benefits and special abilities. Combine that with random maps, new opponents, scenarios and variable difficulty, and you can easily pour many days (and late nights) into these games. I'm having a blast with Civ 5 and the expansions: Gods & Kings as well as Brave New World.

Fallen London (aka Echo Bazaar), from Failbetter Games

(First, how awesome is Failbetter Games as a company name?)

I'm taking this in the order of "What am I playing right now?" so you'll hear about the things I play as I play them, if they are awesome enough that YOU should play them too. I'm also experimenting with my template, and would love feedback. If you're asking When? the answer is Now!

How:

Web browser, mouse only, mostly just text.

What:
Turn based, supernatural, narrative game with novel mechanics, long story arcs, and cooperative or competitive social interactions. Freemium in very good ways.

Who:
You should play this game if you like filling in narrative gaps and a deep story taken in small pieces. Play if you enjoy a casual yet long-term game, which you can pick up for 5 minutes throughout the day. Play to explore a novel, creative world that is spooky and funny and adventurous.

Where:
Online at Fallen London

Why:
Their storytelling mechanism allows you to fill in many details and interstitial gaps for your own character's narrative while giving you all kinds of fun choices to make. Rarely have games made me pause and think for a minute about my next action, but this one has multiple times.