Diplomacy. I only play with the most conniving and deceitful sort to get the full flavor of the game. Playing against honest players is rather dull and pointless.
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Board Games
- Thread starter smallcoffee
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Several years ago there was a board game renaissance. There are vastly better games now than the old Milton Bradley, Parker Brothers type stuff designed decades ago.
Among hundreds of board games (yes really), Terraforming Mars is probably in my top 5. It is a competitive economic game with a very flexible number of players (1-5).
I also like Dead of Winter, which is a cooperative survival game (players vs scenario). This is a good one if you don't want to compete with or battle against your friends and family. Everyone wins or loses together as a group.
For a party game I like The Resistance. It is a 2-team game that is easy to learn, fast, and fun.
http://boardgamegeek.com is an excellent website for board games.
Among hundreds of board games (yes really), Terraforming Mars is probably in my top 5. It is a competitive economic game with a very flexible number of players (1-5).
I also like Dead of Winter, which is a cooperative survival game (players vs scenario). This is a good one if you don't want to compete with or battle against your friends and family. Everyone wins or loses together as a group.
For a party game I like The Resistance. It is a 2-team game that is easy to learn, fast, and fun.
http://boardgamegeek.com is an excellent website for board games.
But there is the comfort of tradition with some of the old board games; teaching kids - the offspring of old college friends - to play Cluedo (Clue to our Transatlantic Cousins) was a real treat (I bought them a wooden set as a gift and thoroughly enjoyed playing with them).
Monopoly was a firm favorite of mine as a boy and still is. Scrabble would usually end in one of us hitting the other for making up BS words. Dictionary in the house would magically disappear as a rainy day dawned on us. Younger brother loved and still loves Risk. Excelled at it. Likes to remind us all... even decades later. Such as the other night...
Oh, gosh, yes: I do remember Risk, as well. Great game. That was another game I encountered at university - those long nights with coffee on someone's (often our own) carpet.......
I've started playing King Domino (up to 4 players) recently and it's a lot of fun...easy to learn rules and great for families.
Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne are also favorites
Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne are also favorites
Board games can be great family fun. We're played Monopoly, Scrabble, but the kids are really into Settlers of Catan.
It's the wife who really doesn't appreciate Axis & Allies, which can take hours to complete. Kids well into it though.
It's the wife who really doesn't appreciate Axis & Allies, which can take hours to complete. Kids well into it though.
Do card games count? We have been playing the following:
- Cards against humanity
- Exploding Kittens
- Uno (Can be turned into a drinking game if you want)
- Disturbed Friends, this one is pretty fun to play with friends.
You just listed one of the most famous games to destroy friendships.... UNO and its dreaded +4 card.
That sounds so great. But I think we in the USA are playing that one pretty much as a group right now, in real life, no board needed. I guess the left coast may not have received the invite but the rest of us, wow... when they start talking about cyclone bombs in the winter, affecting the entire seaboard from Florida to Maine? I hope if we're playing the board game version this weekend we don't need flashlights to see the darn board. And I hope we all win, too.... keep that cyclone bomb scenario, NOAA, not to mention the followup which is yet another and bigger cold air blast from somewhere north of Lake Huron reaching down to Georgia...
JFC. OK, I just turned on Day After Tomorrow for some survival tips.
(Seriously, I had this strange urge to watch it, but had no idea about "cyclone bombs", even though that's along the lines of one of the dangers in the movie ...)
I loved those tactical war board games. My favorite were PanzerBlitz and Stalingrad.
Codenames Pictures is my latest greatest find.
It pits two teams against each other, with a collection of abstract pictures in the center. Clue givers have to give hints to their teammates, made of only two parts: One word, and one number that indicates how many cards the word applies to.
You have to find commonalities between cards and think on the same wave-length as your teammate, and avoid any clues that might cause your team to earn a point.
It pits two teams against each other, with a collection of abstract pictures in the center. Clue givers have to give hints to their teammates, made of only two parts: One word, and one number that indicates how many cards the word applies to.
You have to find commonalities between cards and think on the same wave-length as your teammate, and avoid any clues that might cause your team to earn a point.
Yes! I had quite a few Avalon Hill games - of course, the one with the most mileage was Squad Leader (and later ASL, still have all my rule books, several expansions).
Also had a few games published by Yaquinto like The Ironclads, Panzer, and 88.
Dominoes, sí.... we used to make up special and pretty arcane rules of what could be connected to what, to drive each other crazy. It ended up being more like a game of Concentration since at the outset of such a game after we wrote down the agreed rules for the round, the list could not be consulted again without being docked points for peeking, and the only way to avoid that if you couldn't remember was to risk spending too much time staring at what had been laid down already, to see if you could derive at least one rule to get past your turn...
The younger brothers loved combining a whole bunch of dominoes from five or six sets and standing them on end only to topple them in some pattern when the one or the other end tile was tipped against its neighbor. There was hell to pay when they didn't sort out proper sets when done...
And what about mah-jongg.
That sounds like something our group would do, we make up some pretty crazy rules for our games too. One of the rules is if you don't say something for instance in Yahtzee, if you don't call off a certain achievement, and you are caught, you lose that achievement. As the night progresses on and the more inebriated the group gets, it gets very challenging to say the least!
My family loves to play games when we get together although growing up we played mostly card games. Our all time favorite is Rook, but we also enjoy a regional game called Mississippi Rummy which is similar to a card game called Phase Ten that my wife's family really enjoys. I spent too much time in high school and college playing Spades and Hearts. Of course you can't go wrong with classics like Scrabble, Monopoly, Parcheesi, Risk, and Clue. In fact, we broke out Clue over the holidays to play with our boys who had never played it before. If you are hankering for some "strateegery" then it's hard to beat a good old game of Chess or Checkers.
When it comes to more modern games we enjoy Apples to Apples, Bananagrams, and picked up a new one this holiday season named Utter Nonsense. We played the family edition, but apparently there's a more adult edition as well. We will also break out the Dominoes and play games like Chicken Foot and Mexican Train.
I think games are a great way to spend time with others, be it family or friends. Try to keep it fun without getting overly competitive and just enjoy making memories.
When it comes to more modern games we enjoy Apples to Apples, Bananagrams, and picked up a new one this holiday season named Utter Nonsense. We played the family edition, but apparently there's a more adult edition as well. We will also break out the Dominoes and play games like Chicken Foot and Mexican Train.
I think games are a great way to spend time with others, be it family or friends. Try to keep it fun without getting overly competitive and just enjoy making memories.
I agree. I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the game Power Grid. It's another fun game.
For those that want to see what games are out there, I highly recommend Will Wheaton's Tabletop. It's a streaming show on the Geek & Sundry channel where he has 3 other friends / special guest play newer board / card games. It is very entertaining and informative.
Geek & Sundry can be found on the free Pluto TV which both Roku and Apple TV users can watch.
For those that don't stream or those who want to look for a specific game, all the episodes are on YouTube (search for Will Wheaton Tabletop).
I recently bought and I am still waiting to play the game Stone Age after watching it on Tabletop.
Parcheesi (called Ludo in our part of the world) was a firm favourite in late childhood with brothers and favourite cousin.
And - as students - there was also Trivial Pursuit.
I remember also enjoying playing Masterpiece in a friend's house, during school holidays.
Outstanding, thanks! I see they've reviewed a few games we already own and some we're shopping.
yes monopoly was good one.
But then they came out with special editions.
they had a Cornwall one which I never got to buy.
My fiancee hates board games so pointless having one the specials now.
my nephew loves to play chess with me when I visit
But then they came out with special editions.
they had a Cornwall one which I never got to buy.
My fiancee hates board games so pointless having one the specials now.
my nephew loves to play chess with me when I visit
I have both Fortress America and Shogun. Alas, between the time required and intensely competitive nature, neither get played much.