With the snow piling up higher and higher outside, it’s easy to go a bit mental from cabin fever when you’re trapped inside. Hopefully you’ve stocked up on a good supply of movies, books, hot cocoa, and … board games! But not just any board games, like Monopoly of Scrabble. Oh no, those are boring and will drive you crazy faster than the next weather report. These games go above and beyond the old school stuff, and are more fun than you can shake a stick at. Plus, they’ll help you forget that your house is currently buried under 47 feet of snow, require no electricity, and probably won’t melt at high temperatures. They also probably will stimulate your brain more than a mindless button-mashing video game will, but I’m not promising anything. if you learn something, you’re on your own.

Snatch - this word based game allows you to be extremely sneaky and steal your opponent’s words and use them for your own diabolical needs. It’s a tiny bit like Scrabble, but on steroids, and with a high-speed rocket attached to it. Mix things up as much as you can, and try to steal as many letters and words as possible. As a bonus, it comes in a really spiffy tube that carries the whole game, making it portable and fun, all in one.

Abalone -  No, it’s not a fish — instead it’s a extremely simple, yet very fun game using black and white marbles. Basically, you line up your marbles and use them to “push” your opponent’s marbles off of the playing grid. It’s based on Sumo wrestlers and their movements, but you won’t have to bulk up to play this. It’s also one of those games that you can leave lying around to make you look smart, like a chess set.

Apples to Apples -  When someone first told me about this game, I rolled my eyes and thought it sounded boring. However, once I played, I was hooked. Each person takes turns being a “judge”, and they anonymously gauge the cards they get from the players as responses. The judge will flip over an adjective card, and you have to select from all the noun cards in your hand the one that you best think matches. If you get selected as the winner, you get a card. Collect the most cards, and you’re in the winner’s seat.

Settlers of Catan - This is one that you might have to sell people on a bit, but once you get them inside the game, they’ll love it and it’ll take the place at the front of your game cabinet. You try to establish towns, ports, roads, and knights on your corner of this little world, but in doing so you have to trade with your other players. Will you play nice, or shake things up? The decision is all yours. Just remember that it’ll all come back to bite you in the rear end at some point.

Cranium -  Take Pictionary, add in Trivial Pursuit, multiply by charades, toss in a little bit of karaoke, and then shake liberally, and you’ll get Cranium. There’s a little something in this game for everyone, and it’s extremely fun for larger groups of people. Especially when one of the grumpy men playing has to stand up and sing like Marilyn Monroe. Cranium is also one of those games that features the inverse law of drinking; the more you drink, the better you play.

Carcassonne - like Settlers of Catan, but even better for just two people, Carcassonne is continually voted “best game” year after year. It features very simple gameplay, but like chess it can get very diverse and you have to develop your own sort of strategy as you play. The players develop areas by placing land tiles. Each turn the area becomes larger as the players expand and add roads, fields, cities and cloisters. The players may also deploy their followers as thieves, farmers, knights and monks to control and score points for the roads, farms, cities and cloisters. Watch out for your opponent, and push your way to victory.