Want a family activity this holiday? A CEO who designs board games as a hobby has 2 suggestions.

We asked one board game aficionado in the tech world for his recommendations.

Matt Calkins’ day job is running the enterprise software company Appian, which helps businesses make their own apps to, for example, speed up internal or customer processes.

Calkins cofounded Appian in 1999, took it public in 2017, and is now overseeing the implementation of artificial intelligence into the business.

In his off-hours, the chief executive sometimes delves into his collection of around 800 board games and regularly challenges his own employees to a match. He has also designed three games: Japan-themed war game Sekigahara; airline-themed Tin Goose; and racing game Charioteer.

Apart from his own, these are the two family-friendly games Calkins recommends, plus some bonus recommendations.

Splendor — the visually-pleasing collecting game

Splendor, released in 2022, is a good option across the generations and can be played by two to four people.

Each player acts as a gem merchant with the end goal of acquiring as many “prestige” points as possible. It’s a resource-management game, so players must acquire raw gems, then use their turn to spend these tactically for points.

The game comprises a board, cards, and round tokens representing gems, making it pleasingly tactile, said Calkins.

“What you do on each turn is very simple,” said Calkins. “You accumulate power as the game goes on. The feeling of getting stronger is one of the pleasures in gaming. You feel like you can do more as it progresses.

“It’s good as a broad brush game that a lot of people can participate in.”

Acquire — the game Monopoly wants to be

“It does depend on mood and circumstance,” said Calkins. “But an all-around good game is Acquire.”

Acquire was released in 1963, around 30 years after Monopoly. Like the latter, the focus is on making money as ruthlessly as possible. But unlike the latter, it won’t drag on for hours. It can be played by two to six people.

“It’s a very simple game, the rules are printed on a single sheet of paper,” said Calkins. “There’s substantial uncertainty and skill. You have to memorize what’s going on on the board.”

According to Acquire’s rules, players form hotel chains, acquire blocks of stock, and then try to get richer through merging chains. Another version involves generic corporations rather than hotels, but the principle is the same.

“There are plenty of decisions to make, it’s a high-density game, there’s a lot of a thought in it,” said Calkins. “Of the skill applied, it’s not entirely determinative — the better chess player wins more often than the better Acquire player wins.”

“It does enough justice to be worth playing. When it does injustice, the good news is an hour later it’s over.”

And some bonus recommendations

Power Grid: A resource-management game with the goal of getting as many cities onto the electric grid as possible.

Automobile: Want to be as rich as Elon Musk? This is a game for three to five players that involves being a car production tycoon.

Ingenious: A quick game for one to four players that resembles dominoes.