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Boardgames - The special love between a man and his little wooden tokens
Mojo_Jojo
We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered User regular
We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered User regular
Back before we had this forum we used to keep a semi-active boardgame thread floating in G&T were we'd recommend games to one another, give session reports and just generally chat. It was good fun, and recently I've felt a terrible burning lust to spend some of my hard earned cash on a cardboard box filled with bits of wood and plastic.
Either way, I'll try to do a proper OP and outline the "big" games.
Settlers of Catan
In Settlers of Catan, players try to be the dominant force on the island of Catan by building settlements, cities, and roads. On each turn dice are rolled to determine what resources the island produces. Players collect these resources to build up their civilizations to get to 10 victory points and win the game. Multi-award-winning and one of the most popular games in recent history due to its amazing ability to appeal to non-gamers and gamers alike.
This is pretty much a genre defining game. It treads a strange area between the common boardgames you can find in any toyshop and the weird ones you have to go to specialist for. It's excellent, but like all gateway drugs you end up hungering for more.
There are some expansions too, the big ones being Seafarers and Knights and Cities. The former can be seen as essential (it was originally planned to be part of Settlers but was removed due to the expense) while the latter isn't quite an expansion in the normal sense, instead it changes the game into something very different. As a word of advice, avoid the 5&6 player expansions, they really damage the carefully balanced elegance of the basic three and four player game.
Fluxx
A card game where the cards themselves determine the current rules of the game. By playing cards, you change numerous aspects of the game: how to draw cards, how to play cards, and even how to win. There are 84 cards in the deck with additions available.
Fun, but in a very different way to most other games I'm going to talk about. It's very random (so much so that you won't ever really develop any strategies) but it makes you laugh and a game will only last about ten minutes at the absolute maximum, so it's a nice game to crack out with a couple of beers. It does get old fast though. It comes in a few different themed flavours, such as Stoner Fluxx, which has cards telling you to smoke.
Carcassonne
In this fairly light tile-laying offering, players pull a tile from the pool and place it against one of the previously played tiles. If you start a new object (city, road, farm, or monastery), you can place one of your control markers on the tile to denote your control. Markers (called Followers by the publisher and called Meeples by us) cannot directly compete when placed, so to achieve some gains, you must place your marker and use later tiles to connect up to it.
As subsequent tiles are arrayed on the board, objects get bigger or even merge. When roads or cities are completed, or a monastery is surrounded, the control marker is returned to you and you score the points. However, farmers are not returned and will score points at the game end (there are several rules variations for the farmer scoring).
Therefore, it's possible to have all of your control markers locked on the board on incomplete objects, and not be able to convert them into farmers later in the game. You must balance the need to score points during the game with the need to score farmer points at game end.
The goal is to have the most points at the end, which can be tricky to control considering your choice for each turn isn't the tile itself, but rather the placement of the tile that you drew. Think of a more strategic version of Metro's tile placement, with some of the scoring methods from El Caballero or even the Very Clever Pipe Game.
I'd say this is second to Settlers in terms of how commonplace it is. Nearly everybody who plays boardgames has played this. It's a solid game, lots of strategy and depth while not causing strokes. The main downside is that scoring can take some time at the end of the game.
Puerto Rico
The players are plantation owners in Puerto Rico in the days when ships had sails. Growing up to five different kind of crops: Corn, Indigo, Coffee, Sugar and Tobacco, they must try to run their business more efficiently than their close competitors; growing crops and storing them efficiently, developing San Juan with useful buildings, deploying their colonists to best effect, selling crops at the right time, and most importantly, shipping their goods back to Europe for maximum benefit.
A novel game system lets players choose the order of the phases in each turn by allowing each player to choose a role from those remaining when it is their turn. No role can be selected twice in the same round. The player who selects the best roles to advance their position during the game will win.
This is widely regarded as the best boardgame there is. There's very little luck involved which most people enjoy, as it means that most of the time the winner was the best player. The only downside is that interactions between players are rather indirect. Also some people don't like the theme, claiming it to be racist, but those people have special needs and should be sent to the camps.
Munchkin
Munchkin is a stand-alone card game designed by Steve Jackson that "simulates" (well, sorta') a fantasy-themed RPG (oh, ok, DnD) in a simple, card-based game that's chock full o' silliness. Everyone begins the game as a 1st level Human with NO Class (heh-heh) and via cards, they acquire Races (Elf, Dwarf, etc.), Classes (Thief, Wizard, Cleric, etc.), Items, Armor, Potions and more that they use to combat hideous monsters like the 4th level Undead Horse, the 10th level Net Troll and the 14th Level Unspeakably Awful, Indescribable Horror (very nasty, indeed). The object of the game is to reach Level 10 and levels are acquired via the slaying of monsters and the selling of acquired treasure (1,000 Gold Pieces equals 1 Level).
Often mention but not very good. Really it relies on your players having an understanding of roleplaying (specifically older D&D) humour, which as we all know is generally quite poor. Still, you'll laugh the first time and maybe play it three or four times but it quickly falls apart under scrutiny and the theme isn't strong enough to hold it alone. If you want something light and fast, Fluxx is a better bet. Although you could just keep buying Munchkin expansions to extend its life.
Twilight Imperium
Twilight Imperium Third Edition is an epic empire-building game of interstellar conflict, trade, and struggle for power. Players take the roles of ancient galactic civilizations, each seeking to sieze the imperial throne via warfare, diplomacy, and technological progression. With new oversize geomorphic board tiles, finely detailed plastic miniatures, hundreds of cards, and a massive plurality of options,
The TI gameplay has been refined and redone by original designer Christian T. Petersen. The new design features faster gameplay, and involves players in a far more active game experience with much less downtime. In addition, TI3 will include new Race Cards, as well as a dramatic new approach to the structure of the gameplay itself using the new "Command" system.
If you've ever played Master of Orion then you will most likely like this. It's a lovely space empire simulation. Nice pieces, elegant rules and not all that long compared to other games of this type. The key criticism comes from people who try to play it like Risk and don't understand why they lose as a result (due to victory being determined by victory points rather than domination). There's an expansion now, but sadly I no longer live near the guys I used to play this with so I've not given it a whirl (it introduced some new races, more pieces to allow for eight players rather than six and some other goodness).
Other stuff
I could go on and mention Axis and Allies, Risk (And its seven hundred variants), Tigris & Euprates and even crap like Monopoly. But I think I've covered the main bases here without too much slant to my personal perferences.
Right now I can only really game with people who find Settlers a bit of a stretch and that is a shame. I'd love to be able to bust out the TI3. Still, as I said back at the top of this post, I've got the lust. So I'm looking for something fun, light (not fluxx light but Settlers light) and without too much direct competition. Agricola has caught my eye, so I'm in the process of reading reviews. Or I might just buy Descent (think Heroquest) and use it as an attempt to lure my friends into the dark realm of roleplaying.
Either way, I'll try to do a proper OP and outline the "big" games.
Settlers of Catan
In Settlers of Catan, players try to be the dominant force on the island of Catan by building settlements, cities, and roads. On each turn dice are rolled to determine what resources the island produces. Players collect these resources to build up their civilizations to get to 10 victory points and win the game. Multi-award-winning and one of the most popular games in recent history due to its amazing ability to appeal to non-gamers and gamers alike.
This is pretty much a genre defining game. It treads a strange area between the common boardgames you can find in any toyshop and the weird ones you have to go to specialist for. It's excellent, but like all gateway drugs you end up hungering for more.
There are some expansions too, the big ones being Seafarers and Knights and Cities. The former can be seen as essential (it was originally planned to be part of Settlers but was removed due to the expense) while the latter isn't quite an expansion in the normal sense, instead it changes the game into something very different. As a word of advice, avoid the 5&6 player expansions, they really damage the carefully balanced elegance of the basic three and four player game.
Fluxx
A card game where the cards themselves determine the current rules of the game. By playing cards, you change numerous aspects of the game: how to draw cards, how to play cards, and even how to win. There are 84 cards in the deck with additions available.
Fun, but in a very different way to most other games I'm going to talk about. It's very random (so much so that you won't ever really develop any strategies) but it makes you laugh and a game will only last about ten minutes at the absolute maximum, so it's a nice game to crack out with a couple of beers. It does get old fast though. It comes in a few different themed flavours, such as Stoner Fluxx, which has cards telling you to smoke.
Carcassonne
In this fairly light tile-laying offering, players pull a tile from the pool and place it against one of the previously played tiles. If you start a new object (city, road, farm, or monastery), you can place one of your control markers on the tile to denote your control. Markers (called Followers by the publisher and called Meeples by us) cannot directly compete when placed, so to achieve some gains, you must place your marker and use later tiles to connect up to it.
As subsequent tiles are arrayed on the board, objects get bigger or even merge. When roads or cities are completed, or a monastery is surrounded, the control marker is returned to you and you score the points. However, farmers are not returned and will score points at the game end (there are several rules variations for the farmer scoring).
Therefore, it's possible to have all of your control markers locked on the board on incomplete objects, and not be able to convert them into farmers later in the game. You must balance the need to score points during the game with the need to score farmer points at game end.
The goal is to have the most points at the end, which can be tricky to control considering your choice for each turn isn't the tile itself, but rather the placement of the tile that you drew. Think of a more strategic version of Metro's tile placement, with some of the scoring methods from El Caballero or even the Very Clever Pipe Game.
I'd say this is second to Settlers in terms of how commonplace it is. Nearly everybody who plays boardgames has played this. It's a solid game, lots of strategy and depth while not causing strokes. The main downside is that scoring can take some time at the end of the game.
Puerto Rico
The players are plantation owners in Puerto Rico in the days when ships had sails. Growing up to five different kind of crops: Corn, Indigo, Coffee, Sugar and Tobacco, they must try to run their business more efficiently than their close competitors; growing crops and storing them efficiently, developing San Juan with useful buildings, deploying their colonists to best effect, selling crops at the right time, and most importantly, shipping their goods back to Europe for maximum benefit.
A novel game system lets players choose the order of the phases in each turn by allowing each player to choose a role from those remaining when it is their turn. No role can be selected twice in the same round. The player who selects the best roles to advance their position during the game will win.
This is widely regarded as the best boardgame there is. There's very little luck involved which most people enjoy, as it means that most of the time the winner was the best player. The only downside is that interactions between players are rather indirect. Also some people don't like the theme, claiming it to be racist, but those people have special needs and should be sent to the camps.
Munchkin
Munchkin is a stand-alone card game designed by Steve Jackson that "simulates" (well, sorta') a fantasy-themed RPG (oh, ok, DnD) in a simple, card-based game that's chock full o' silliness. Everyone begins the game as a 1st level Human with NO Class (heh-heh) and via cards, they acquire Races (Elf, Dwarf, etc.), Classes (Thief, Wizard, Cleric, etc.), Items, Armor, Potions and more that they use to combat hideous monsters like the 4th level Undead Horse, the 10th level Net Troll and the 14th Level Unspeakably Awful, Indescribable Horror (very nasty, indeed). The object of the game is to reach Level 10 and levels are acquired via the slaying of monsters and the selling of acquired treasure (1,000 Gold Pieces equals 1 Level).
Often mention but not very good. Really it relies on your players having an understanding of roleplaying (specifically older D&D) humour, which as we all know is generally quite poor. Still, you'll laugh the first time and maybe play it three or four times but it quickly falls apart under scrutiny and the theme isn't strong enough to hold it alone. If you want something light and fast, Fluxx is a better bet. Although you could just keep buying Munchkin expansions to extend its life.
Twilight Imperium
Twilight Imperium Third Edition is an epic empire-building game of interstellar conflict, trade, and struggle for power. Players take the roles of ancient galactic civilizations, each seeking to sieze the imperial throne via warfare, diplomacy, and technological progression. With new oversize geomorphic board tiles, finely detailed plastic miniatures, hundreds of cards, and a massive plurality of options,
The TI gameplay has been refined and redone by original designer Christian T. Petersen. The new design features faster gameplay, and involves players in a far more active game experience with much less downtime. In addition, TI3 will include new Race Cards, as well as a dramatic new approach to the structure of the gameplay itself using the new "Command" system.
If you've ever played Master of Orion then you will most likely like this. It's a lovely space empire simulation. Nice pieces, elegant rules and not all that long compared to other games of this type. The key criticism comes from people who try to play it like Risk and don't understand why they lose as a result (due to victory being determined by victory points rather than domination). There's an expansion now, but sadly I no longer live near the guys I used to play this with so I've not given it a whirl (it introduced some new races, more pieces to allow for eight players rather than six and some other goodness).
Other stuff
I could go on and mention Axis and Allies, Risk (And its seven hundred variants), Tigris & Euprates and even crap like Monopoly. But I think I've covered the main bases here without too much slant to my personal perferences.
Right now I can only really game with people who find Settlers a bit of a stretch and that is a shame. I'd love to be able to bust out the TI3. Still, as I said back at the top of this post, I've got the lust. So I'm looking for something fun, light (not fluxx light but Settlers light) and without too much direct competition. Agricola has caught my eye, so I'm in the process of reading reviews. Or I might just buy Descent (think Heroquest) and use it as an attempt to lure my friends into the dark realm of roleplaying.
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
Mojo_Jojo on
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I have only one game, though I sometimes go play with people who have dozens. Each. I've played Cataan, Carcassonne, Puerto Rico and many many more. I really like the War of The Ring Boardgame, but my favourite is the one in my bookcase:
A GAME OF THRONES
This is a wonderful game, based on the books by George RR Martin. It's an fun game, but also distinguishes itself by feeling like the books - politics and betrayal are a necessity, there's no such thing as a hero, and famine or the wildlings may kill us all if we ignore them.
Apparently some of the mechanics are similar to Diplomacy, which I've never played. There are no dice, but there are lots of 'closed-fist auction' where players take some of their resource tokens into their hand, then hold out their fist. Once everyone's ready, all reveal their tokens simultaneously - the person with the most tokens wins, the rest have wasted tokens, and sometimes there's a penalty for the one who is holding the least.
Armies have a simple point value (1 for infantry, 2 for cavalry), so battles are won and lost by the turn of a (secret) leader card and the assistance of other player's armies.
This game generates more stories than anything else I've ever played. I've yet to play a game that's so... narrative. The last time I played, the wildlings attacked, we all tried to stave them off, but the most powerful player secretly didn't send any forces. The wildlings ravaged the south, all our armies were reduced by the wildlings, but he still had enough left to conquer Westeros. Bastard.
I'm interested in playing TI now - I avoid big wargames because the rules are usually inelegant, unoriginal, and the games go on for hours, with the winner being the one who can understand the maths of the game system best rather than the best tactician/strategician/politician. You saying it's not like that piques my interest.
Cutthroat Caverns
This game is a pretty straight forward card based dungeon crawler in a way. Everyone in the group fights a set amount of monsters one at a time while working their way out of the dungeon. You have a stack of monster cards and then a stack of attack and special power cards. Whoever strikes the killing blow on the monster gets the points from the kill. Who ever has that highest points after the last monster is killed wins.
Where the fun comes in is the monsters themselves and screwing over your "teammates". All the monsters have some sort of special power. For example the cursed Goblin gets healed instead of hurt with every other attack. So you have to be aware of what order everyone is attacking. Attack initiative is a random card draw at the beginning of each round, it also decides who is taking damage from the monster that round.
Lots of strategy involved with what type of attack cards you play. You want to strike the killing blow and beat the other players but you also don't want the other players to die off to fast because you need them to help kill later monsters. Played this at Origins 08 and it was the most fun we had there, ended up buying it and the expansion for it that has more monsters.
Key Largo
Diving/treasure hunting game. The women in our group like this one a lot. Not too complicated but also strategy involved. Each player is running a treasure hunting company and you hire divers to go dive for the treasures.
There are 3 types of areas to dive in, Shallow, Medium, and Deep, with about 5 spots in each each to put you boat. Each area has better treasure than the one before but also more sea monsters that can kill your diver if they haven't bought a trident. The areas are represented by stacks of cards face down that either have treasure or a monster when turned over.
There are about 10 days of turns before the hurricane comes, with each day having a morning and an afternoon. Before each day you decide what two actions you are doing to do for the day. You can dive for treasure, sell goods that you have found, go to the tavern, go to the equipment shop, or go watch dolphins. At the tavern you can hire more divers, buy drinks to get to look at two stacks of cards, or hire a theif to steal someone elses treasure. If you watch dolphins you get a little bit of money and also a tourist card that gives you a special one time action or power.
The art work was unique and well done and the rule book was excellent. Every question we had was answered in it right away. Very fun and semi-short game.
Few others we have had fun with
Battle Lore
Long setup but fun miniature battle game. Can play as a fantasy game with magic or straight medieval game.
Dorktower
Same artist/characters and feel as munchkin but in a boardgame. Only played this one once but had fun with it. Cheapish board and pieces but playable.
Werewolves of Millerhollow
One of about 3 Werewolf games that I know of. Each person gets a card that has a role on it and you have one moderator or GM. This one has a few more roles than some of the other werewolf games I have seen, which adds a little bit to it. Werewolves try to kill the villagers.. villagers try to figure out who the werewolves are. Simple game that our group loves, especially after a few drinks.
Gir: I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me.
Last night on earth
Last Night on Earth, The Zombie Game is a fast-paced game of brain-eating Zombies, small town Heroes, and horror movie action. Players take on the role of either the Heroes, working together to make it through the night; or the Zombies, unending waves of undead spreading over the town like a plague. Featuring a modular board, eight Heroes to choose from, and several different Scenarios to play that drastically change the game, Last Night on Earth is designed to create a cinematic feel as the story and game unfolds.
I picked this up the other day for a night of board gaming, The game was extremely simple to pick up, and was a blast with both the zombie players and the hero players having fun.
Thoughts of a Part-Time Hobbyist - A Wargaming and RPG Blog
From the limited play we had, It seems the zombies have to get to the players early or totally swarm them. It's tempting as the zombies to play every card as soon as you can, but you're better off waiting till you can throw some combos down and wreck house.
It is a truly brilliant game. Everyone should get it.
Just trust me on this.
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!
This game however is designed by the same guy who made the starcraft board game, which I thought was an excellent video game/boardgame that captured what made the video game great but also stayed true to being a board game. It also won the orgins award which I guess means something.
I would say this is in good hands, and we'll see what they say about it at Gencon.
But I'm surprised no one has mentioned one of the BEST non-political strategy games, Ticket to Ride, or my preference, Ticket to Ride: Europe.
It's a basic resource strategy game that can be fun with 3 players (which is sometimes hard to find in board games) or more, and is still strategically deep enough to be really fulfilling in practice. Your basic goal is to complete certain, randomly assigned train lines using resource cards while competing for track space with the other players. Much, much fun.
So, I don't know if you want to include random card games in this, but I think non-collectible card games generally fall under the same interest.
It's not a game that will change your life. You probably won't want to play it more than 20 times, but it's only ten bucks and good god, it's fun when you're including alternate imbibing rules as well.
We Didn't Playtest This At All, by Asmodi Games. I was going to include a graphic, but there aren't any I can find. It's... exactly what it promises. Games generally last about five minutes, there's no point to trying to win, the goal is just to have fun and be as much of an ass as possible.
Edit: Stolen from link for those at work or whatever.
"Mwahahaha! is a card game of mad scientists and global domination for 2 to 5 players. You assume the role of an evil genius who builds a criminal empire and constructs a doomsday device with which to cow a trembling humanity. But you’re not the only one with grand machinations. Other players rival you for absolute mastery. He who completes his device first and collects the highest ransom is declared the winner — and ruler of the world!"
I have never been so filled with desire for a board game as I am now.
Uh oh. BSG boardgame? My two greatest loves combined...
I just got Agricola from Pozy.com (like Woot.com but for boardgames) for a pretty good price, looking forward to trying it.
Basically you are networking either American or German cities together and buying various kinds of power plants and the resources to run them. The goal is to get the most cities serviced. It is a brilliantly designed game with a lot of fantastic mechanics that you should all check out.
I think in the past there was lots of... shovelware? I'm not sure of a good word for it. But recently, with the nu-boardgames renaissance thingy, there are plenty of good tie-in games. The companies with licenses are using proper designers instead of 'It's like snakes and ladders, but with dark side wormholes and light side wormholes!'
Or they just rip off other games, but at least they're ones with good mechanics instead of monopoly or risk.
Robo Rally:
Chaotic game where you lay out 5 orders in advance for your robot, then everyone executes the order simultaniously. Five orders make mistakes common enough to provide hilarity, and due everyone taking their turn at the same time, the game doesn't slow down much going from 3 to 8 players (But adds more chaos). Robots get damaged by shooting each other, or standing in lasers, fall or get pushed into pits, and you have to adjust for belts which can make it quite tricky.
The concept of the game is difficult to explain to new players though.
The game was out of print for a long time, but nowadays is plenty available since Wizards picked up the license.
Primordial Soup
Even more chaos then Robo rally, trying to win the evolutionary race out of the primordial soup has a pretty big chance factor at times. But the base mechanic is fun (Every turn, amoebes must eat, and with it, they make the square they stand in lower on nutrients. Players buy evolutionary traits to deal with this, either by eating less, controlling movement better, or eating opponents). The floating direction makes a lot of difference.
30 secondsMore of a party game then a board game (Though it does have a board), it relies on fast associative thinking, and the ability to understand what your teammates knows, and how they think as well. Much hilarity comes from exposing people's blindspot (What do you mean, you don't know who Bruce Willis is?!?)
It's largely because I bought the Warcraft game. It's so weird, the rules read like it'll be fun, but it really isn't. Not at all. It was just so damn dull.
Shadows Over Camelot
In the final days of Arthur's Camelot, players take the roles of knights of legend in an attempt to stave off darkness. Combat Mordred's hordes of Picts and Saxons, or quest for Lancelot, Excalibur, and the Holy Grail. But beware: some knights may have already fallen to darkness, and are working in secret to bring Camelot down from within. Work together, but watch your back, to save Camelot.
I really like this game. It's got the whole secret enemy mechanic that really turns players into a bunch of paranoid lunatics. That, and it's cooperative (unless you're a traitor), which is always a huge plus in my book. I'm a big fan of the theme, too, and it really does get across the feeling of fighting the inevitable. The players need to work very well together if they want to stand a chance, it can get pretty tough.
Also, holy crap this came out three years ago it feels like yesterday where is the time going oh my god.
I guess card games are kosher, so:
Once Upon a Time
This game probably depends most on having the right group. It can be cutthroat, but it's best played when the players aren't only out to win at all costs. Players get a hand of cards, and tell a story. Each time you introduce an element into the story, you can discard a corresponding card. The goal is to run out of cards. Other players can take control of the story by doing the same thing: discarding a corresponding card when you introduce that element. So the whole game is this big linguistic wrestling match, which I find to be amazingly fun. We've had some fantastic stories come out of this game. Some shitty ones, too, but it's always fun getting there. I highly recommend this game.
This is an obscenely long post, so I'll leave you with:
Republic of Rome
It's pretty much the ultimate political strategy game. You control senators in ancient Rome, and you compete against the other players to seize more power for your families. But you also have to work together to protect Rome. So you might urgently need to assassinate a powerful rival, but you also need him around because he's the best general Rome has. Difficult decisions abound, and it's guaranteed to make you and your friends hate each other. It's getting a re-release someday, so now everyone can get a chance make new enemies.
Zombie in my Pocket
In Zombie in my Pocket, you're searching for the secret of the evil temple where you can find the item to destroy the zombies rising from the dead. You can pick up items to bash zombies along the way; a machete, golf club, chain saw, or even your former uncle's grisly femur.
Find the zombie totem, then bury it in the backyard graveyard before midnight and you've saved the world. Otherwise, you're zombie food.
The game is free, fits in your pocket, and the modular board combined with the development cards make it a different game every time. BoardGameGeeks
Zombies!!! puts you in the middle of the action as you try to escape the ever advancing zombie horde. Players must use a combination of wits and brawn to be the first to the heliport and certain escape. The only problem is, the zombies are everywhere, they appear to be very hungry and your opponents would really prefer if you didn't escape.
Relatively cheap (about half the price of last night on earth), easy to pickup in under 5 minutes, and fairly fun and social in the "how can I fuck over my opponent the most?" sort of way. Each turn you pickup and place a tile, adding to the city. each tile tells you how many zombies (touch one, kill it by rolling 4+ on a d6), hearts (hearts - they are your health and also let you remove one for a complete re-roll), and bullets (using one from your stockpile adds +1 to a low roll). You also get 3 cards to dick your opponents with at any point once per turn. Either kill the most zombies, or reach the helicopter tile to escape. Tons of expansions.
I fairly like that one so far as zombie games go. It's funny how the toy store I work in has pretty much all these games and more. I have a question though - my dad sort of liked catan, and he likes trains. Would he like ticket to ride? I'm trying to think ahead of a decent xmas gift.
Yup.
Seriously, though, TTR is a pretty safe bet. I don't really know anyone that hates TTR.
Also, the Travelling Man in Bristol has closed, so I have to make do with Forbidden Planet for my purchasing needs (or possibly Thoughthammer or whatever that super cheap online place is called, although people often claim that they are evil, so I'm not sure about using them).
Reminds me a bit of Fireball Island, which is a fun game.
I found Zombies! to be not fun for exactly the reason you just described. It had one of the better toy factors ever, though, because, seriously, who doesn't like a billion plastic zombies? You could even get ones that GLOWED IN THE DARK.
If your dad enjoys board games on some level, and loves trains, I think he will enjoy Ticket to Ride, yes. bear in mind that there are at least three versions now. I like Europe because... well, building trains is more exciting to me than trains in the midwest, and also it introduced tunnels.
We just picked up Arkham Horror a couple of weeks ago, and it's amazing. Good with 4 people, a bit tougher with 3, we haven't tried with 5 or 6. I wouldn't suggest trying to play 2 player with 2 characters each until you're really familiar with the game, though. Too much going on every turn. We haven't got any of the expansions yet, so I can't comment on those.
I think my favorite part is that it's a cooperative game -- the players vs the board, rather than player vs player. So if you've got a group where some people feel outclassed by others in strategic ability, you can still all have fun playing, because there's incentive for the more strategically-minded to help out the others -- they're all working together to win.
Blokus
This is a great strategy game for 2-4 players that is simple in its execution. From what I understand, it sells really well, so while I only learned about it a few months ago, a lot of you have probably already know of it. In this game players take turns setting down colored, tetris-like pieces on a grid so that each piece touches another piece of the same color at its corner but not at its side. The game ends when no one can place any more pieces, and the winner is the player who has the least number of remaining squares (each piece being made up of 1 to five squares). I have only played the original version, but there are two other versions available as well, one for two players only (Travel Blokus) and one based on triangles (Blokus Trigon).
Apples to Apples
This is a straight up party game with almost no strategy involved that's still a blast to play. It's a card game featuring two different kinds of cards: Noun cards and Adjective cards. Everyone starts the game with a hand of Noun cards, with the goal of the game being to acquire a set number of adjective cards first. Each turn, one player plays the role of the judge, who pulls an adjective card from the pile for all the players to see. Then, the other players select one noun card each from their hands for the judge to consider. He is free to choose any player's noun card, so that if the adjective were "Famous", he could choose a logical submission like "Madonna" or an ironic submission like "Me" (Some cards are self referential). The winner of that round gets the adjective card, and the judge position rotates to someone else. This makes game play hinge greatly on not only matching noun cards to adjective cards, but also making these matches based on what you think that round's judge will pick. The game continues like this until one player wins by getting enough adjective cards.
I did the same the other night, it seems to be a pretty good game, just kinda stumbled through the first one, but we're getting it down.
Due to being short one person in our last three games, we've played with "random" as a player. So the judging player would play his green card and add the first red card on the draw pile along with the other players' red card. Usually it will be something nonsensical like 'peanuts' for 'famous', but you'd be surprised how many times soemthing will come up better than everyone elses', and the Judge says 'alright, who played George Washington?' and everyone else just looks at eachother, dumbfoundedness turning into shock realization that Ranom won again.
Random's current score is 1-2 win/lose, but one loss was 7 out of 8 points.
Betrayal at House on the Hill
The players start off working together to explore a tile-based house, discovering horror-movie events called Omens. Once enough Omens happen (determined randomly), the Haunt begins and one player turns traitor against the rest, trying to complete a goal chosen from the scenario booklet. There's a tremendous amount of variety in the scenarios ranging from mundane (House is flooding; get to the boat before traitor does) to bizarre (traitor is an alien, transports house to another dimension).
Only played a few times but had a blast each time.
I replied with tons of thanks, etc, and his final text said, simply, "So say we all."
Blokus is sort of fun, there's travel, octagon, regular, and giant blokus. Giant blokus is kind of a ripoff though, all the staff at our store had thought it was a giant board with small pieces, but it's the exact same as regular blokus, only scaled up in size.
TTR has 3 different sets - US (the first set), europe, germany, and the 1910 expansion. I'm thinking of germany for him, and I've seen quite a few seniors come into our store asking/buying it, so I think it'll be a good one for him. He's 74, so yeah, senior does apply.
Someone do a little writeup on the starcraft boardgame. Man that thing has a bajillion pieces. And was somewhat hard to learn. We paired up when we were learning to play it at pax last year, one drunk person with a sober one to equal 1.5 people per team. I can't say I helped all that much, but from what I remember before falling asleep it was pretty fun.
TELL US EVERYTHING!
Azulan Saul Tigh