Gonain

Your choice of boardgame depends on the type of gamers they are and how young the youngest player is.

I would avoid Lunch Money. The "dark, psychological images" aren't very exciting, the gameplay isn't nearly as fast paced and exciting as it could be. The game feels like it focused so much on flavor that they forgot about gameplay. The only aspect I enjoyed about the game was the designer made all the art by photographing his daughter and editing the pictures. Even then, the art gets sort of boring when you see the same girl in every picture in black+ a shade of blue/red/green.

If you are looking for a very fast paced game for all ages, I would suggest Fluxx 3.1. It has the simpliest set of rules ever.

You start with 3 cards in hand and each turn a player draws 1 card and plays 1 card. The cards you play will add new rules to the game, produce certain effects like everyone trading hands and playing cards that determine what you need to do to win the game.

I've never played Blokus before, but I agree with rlbond86 on Settlers of Catan. The goal is to reach a certain number of victory points, victory points are determined by what you have in play, ie each settlement you control is worth 1 point. You build roads, settlements and cities towards ports and other parts of the map to gather resources to develop your board and race to get the most victory points. There is an extremely heavy focus on trading other resources with players to meet your goals and it's very easy to pick up. I've seen many kids as young as 6 learn the game relatively quickly.

Settlers will never grow old because the board is made up of numerous hexagonal pieces that can be arranged to make new maps, the possibilities for these maps are endless and add a large amount of variety to the game. If your playgroup ever decide the game isn't complicated enough, there are numerous expansions that add entire layers of gameplay. Barbarians that attack the towns, knights to defend them, upgrades that give you special actions such as an extra resource if you didn't produce any that turn etc.

Be warned that the game can be quite expensive. The basic game can support 3-4 players and it costs about 40 dollars. Then there is the Cities and Knights expansion, the 5-6 player expansion and Seafarers which will run you another 40 dollars each. Most people will play the base game for a few weeks, realize they love it and buy Cities and Knights + the 5-6 player expansion. I've never played Seafarers, but everyone I've spoken to never recommends it. Whatever you do, don't try the other spinoffs they made like Spacefarers and Settlers of the Stone Age, they are cute the first time you play them, but after that you will probably never touch it again.

Carcasonne is another really popular title I've never really seen anyone dislike. Each turn players pick up a face down tile and add it to the board like a jigsaw piece then they play a guy to farm or build among other roles I can't remember off the top of my head. For builders, when a set of tiles completes the art for a town, all the builders return to the players that were part of that town and they get points based on how big it is and what tiles were used. The game takes minutes to learn and has quite a bit of longevity. I've been just playing the base game with no expansions for years now and it hasn't grown old yet. I believe you can buy the game with expansions included in a nice wooded box and felt bag which adds new tiles that add a bit more complexity to the game.

After they tried those, if they want more advanced games, my favorite two titles are Peurto Rico and Tigris and Euphrates. I don't think I'd ever suggest those to groups that haven't already gotten into the genre and become a little bit more serious. A common problem with board games is that when you play a very advanced game like Peurto Rico with a mix of casual and serious players, the weakest casual player will determine the outcome of the game and you are better off playing a less strategic title like the games previously listed.

I'm probably boring you now, I could go on all day about games worth trying. My favorites are Settlers of Catan /w Cities and Knights, Carcasonne, Carcasonne Hunters and Gatherers (pretty much the same thing as Carcasonne), Fluxx 3.1, Peurto Rico, Tigris and Euphrates (I don't own this one but I play it frequently). Games I enjoy, but haven't purchased (mostly because friends own them) are Ticket to Ride, Alhambra, Chrononauts, Three Dragon Ante and Chez Geek(not really suitable for youngsters).