Number of Players: 3 players, we're all cousins. We may have a 4th player on a rare occasion, but 95% of the time it will be just us 3. We're all in our mid-twenties.

Game Length: 1 hour maximum, unless the game is that engrossing for all people in my group.

Complexity of Game: We're all new to board games, but two of us are experienced (video) gamers. The other doesn't play video games at all (she joins in on some games we play though), but she's always down to try new things, and picks up on stuff very quickly. So nothing hardcore, but my gamer cousin and I would love to try something in the mid-level difficulty, that my non-gamer cousin can still be able to play and enjoy. Nothing that takes a long time to explain though.

Budget: Looking to buy two games for $70 total.

Genre: You don't need to tick every box, just most of them.

• I really want a fantasy game where you can play as a certain class, like elves, mages (especially mages), orcs, etc. Small World is a perfect example. I'm open to any genre if the game is good, but I prefer this.
• Something that's visually designed well and is nice to look at. I love the way Betrayal and Small World look just as an example.
• I'd prefer one of the games to be a more focused on strategy than luck, since the games I'm getting so far are luck-based (KoT, Betrayal).
• Something with fairly easy to understand mechanics that can be manipulated into complex strategies.
• A game with a deception-type mechanic would be fun. Something where a player can be very sneaky.
• Something that gets better if you're drunk. Unless KoT fills this role already.
• Something with direct conflict. KoT has conflict, but I can't pick out certain people to crush.
• Great replay value.

Competitive or Cooperative: Competitive for sure. I don't think we'd enjoy cooperative as much because we're all very competitive people. We have a relationship where we're so close that we play at hating each other, which would make a competitive game very fun for us. My gamer cousin plays a lot of fighting games competitively, and he and I have spent many summers playing Smash, for more context.

Games I Own: I just bought King of Tokyo. That's it. I haven't played it yet but I imagine we'd enjoy it.

Games I'm looking at:

• Betrayal At House On The Hill - I'm almost certain I'm going to be getting this. My non-gamer cousin likes horror stuff, and the traitor aspect sounds like something she'd especially love. The opinions on this game are very skewed from the research I've done, but I feel we'll all love this. I might get this using money outside of the $70 budget, but I'm not sure.

• Small World - I love the classes and the fantasy aspect, and it seems like it'd be able to utilize our strategic brains most out of all the 3 I've mentioned. However, I'm worried it might be too easy? I watched the Tabletop episode with this game and it seemed a little easy, but I was in and out so I wasn't fully paying attention. I'd love to hear opinions on this game. Any better alternatives?