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Board Game Recommendations
Dark Moon
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So the Christmas season is rolling around and all the people clambering to buy me things have requested I supply them with some ideas. Unfortunately, aside from a nice Merkur safety razor, I had absolutely no ideas to furnish their shopping lists with. As luck would have it, however, I realized today how much fun I've had in the past weeks playing various friends' board games and how meager my own collection is. After placing one and one together and deliberating over several pots of coffee, I've figured that this would be a splendid opportunity to build my board game collection. A brief foray into boardgamegeek.com has made me quite sure quite sure that I haven't the foggiest clue what non-classic board games are available and fun to play these days, so I come to you noble forumgoers in the hopes that you can assist me in compiling a game list.
First, a brief list of games I know and love, in order of decreasing preference, with links to the boardgamewiki for less popular games.
Wise and Otherwise
Scrabble
Risk
Balderdash
Monopoly
Settlers of Catan
Masterpiece
Taboo
Now, consideration also has to be given to the pool of possible game players I have at my disposal. I regularly have access to 4 other board gamers capable and willing to learn complex rules and play through a longer game. More often, however, I'll be with a group of 6 or so folks who do not enjoy learning fancy rulesets and whose attentions will begin to wander after more than an hour or two at play. I am not adverse to games that cater only to the first set of players, but I would prefer a game playable with both groups.
Budget is roughly $60CAD. Thanks for sharing your experience!
First, a brief list of games I know and love, in order of decreasing preference, with links to the boardgamewiki for less popular games.
Wise and Otherwise
Scrabble
Risk
Balderdash
Monopoly
Settlers of Catan
Masterpiece
Taboo
Now, consideration also has to be given to the pool of possible game players I have at my disposal. I regularly have access to 4 other board gamers capable and willing to learn complex rules and play through a longer game. More often, however, I'll be with a group of 6 or so folks who do not enjoy learning fancy rulesets and whose attentions will begin to wander after more than an hour or two at play. I am not adverse to games that cater only to the first set of players, but I would prefer a game playable with both groups.
Budget is roughly $60CAD. Thanks for sharing your experience!
Dark Moon on
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That said, some classics are Settlers of Catan, Carcasonne, Puerto Rico, and recently Agricola. None are particularly rules-heavy, although I'm not sure about the optimal numbers of players for those.
A Game of Thrones and Shadows Over Camelot are good 5-player games. Last Night on Earth is great for getting that zombie fix. If you're looking at Risk, I think you'd do well to look at Axis and Allies. It's somewhat similar to Risk, but better in pretty much every way. The Fury of Dracula and Arkham Horror are both great games for your heavier group.
admanb, I gave preference to WoO (and word/phrase games in general) as the rules are simpler, the gameplay much more fast-paced and due to a general preference for word games over strategy. I'm really quite interested in more games in the vein of WoO, if you have any suggestions.
the website is ugly and sucks, but the game great fun. It's nothing like risk or settlers, but quite easy to explain and great as a casual game with non-hardcore gamers. (edit: it is a bit of a reflex-action game... but anyone can play really...)
Lots of laughs to be had. really, tremendous fun.
and for more complicated games.
Carcassonne and Machiavelli seem to be pretty populair and pretty good games.
Blokus - 4 Players (Also Trigon version) http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/2453
Acquire - 6 Players (My Favorite) http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/5
A Game of Thrones - Up to 5 Players, Expansion allows a 6th. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/6472
Settlers of Catan - 3/4 Players. (Lots of Expansions) http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/13
Carcassone - 5 players. (6th allowed with a specifc expansion) There are I believe 6+ expansions for this, each adding new tiles and peices/rules. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/822
Ticket to Ride - Up to 5 Players. (Loads of fun, very simple game. There are half a dozen different versions with slightly different rules. I recommend Europe version.) http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/9209
Powergrid - Up to 5-6 players. Very balanced. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/2651
Bohnanza - Up to 7 Players. (Bean Farming + Trading game) http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/11
Citadels - Up to 7 players, very simple and lots of fun. (Cards + Tokens) http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/478
Roborally - Up to 8 players. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/18 (Interesting Anecdote; Richard Garfields first game, created before Magic: The Gathering. He went to Wizards of the Coast with this but they weren't interested in it and told him they were looking for a CTCG, collectable trading card game. He went home and designed Magic: The Gathering for them, and a year later got Roborally published.)
Have Played, do not yet own, but would recommend;
Puerto Rico (5 Players) - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/3076
Amun-Re (5 Players) - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/5404
Ingenious (4 Players) - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/9674
Battlestar Galactica (6 Players) - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/37111
IOS Game Center ID: Isotope-X
Munchkin munchkin munchkin.
It's not a board game but it will definitely appeal to both groups.
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
Someone else mentioned Loaded Questions. I would second (and possibly third) that one at the very least.
However, I've found "Lord of the Rings" Risk to be a really fun game.
Good pace, tight ruleset, fun pieces/setting, lots of game variants.
I'm a die-hard Settlers fan (and Risk/Axis and Allies) but still found this branded version of Risk to be well worth playing and owning.
And I have to mention Rush Hour. It is single player but one of my favorite games. Could be played multi by letting each person make a move. My wife and I play that way sometimes.
Boardgamegeek links:
Arkham Horror
Cosmic Encounter
Betrayal at House on the Hill
A few quick descriptions of each game:
Arkham Horror is a boardgame adaptation of the Call of Cthulhu tabletop RPG. It's played cooperatively, from anywhere from 1-8 players (I personally find more than 4 gets a bit boring). The players get to play investigators, who are attempting to stop an ancient evil from being unleashed, which will destroy the universe. There are like 5 expansions available as of now, so the base game can be made quite a bit more complex through them. Basically the game plays like a tabletop RPG lite.
Cosmic Encounter is a little harder to describe. It's competitive with a good deal of randomness involved. Basically, the goal is galactic domination. There's an online version of it here where you can familizarize yourself with how it plays. I play on the 1990s printing of the game, there's a new reprint/remake of it that will be available soon. Ideally it's played with 4 people, but different pressings of the game support different numbers of players.
Betrayal at House on the Hill follows a randomly generated storyline involving a group of people who have been lured into a haunted house controlled by a traitor. The game is played cooperatively from the start, until around halfway through the game where the traitor is revealed. Then, the game generally changes to be the other players working to thwart the traitor. There are around 30 different scenarios, and the layout of the house is also randomly generated, so there's a lot of variety with seperate playthroughs of the game. Some scenarios include:
-The traitor sends the house into another dimension where the air is (slightly) poisonous to the humans in the house
-The traitor raises an army of ghouls to capture the remaining players so he can sacrifice them for dark purposes
-The traitor unleashes a world-devouring worm in the house
-The house is alive! And wants to eat everyone inside it! (This scenario has no traitor)
Yes. YES. I've always had fun playing Citadels.
IOS Game Center ID: Isotope-X
http://www.mindtrapgames.com/Framesets/ProductsFS.html
Sidenote: No matter what group I play A2A with, "Helen Keller" is always an insta-win card.
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
Awesome card game, I have not found a person who did not enjoy this game, gamer or otherwise. Apples to Apples is also awesome.
I thought it was fun.
Probably for the second group.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
From my previous post with a link...
I second Twilight Imperium, though it probably wouldn't work well with your extended group. Very heavy on rules, and very time intensive. But it is an excellent game and lots of fun when the backstabbing and the wars on two fronts start.
Origin: theRealElMucho
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I tried to play this once with some experienced players. I had to go home after four hours...at which point, no player had yet gained any advantage over any other.
They divided my assets equally and continued to play for another four hours.
This, my friendship group dies laughing. As long as you are willing to give points for hilarity, Scattergories *cannot* fail. You can also find lists of questions online that can customize the game for your friends. Such as video game questions, etc.
You really just need a timer and the alphabet dice and you could do the rest of this with your home computer and printer (ie not really a need to buy it if you don't want to).
Here's some of our recent answers that got passed for hilarity:
Things made of Glass: Samuel L. Jackson in Unbreakable
Excuse for being late for work: Penis slammed in door
Things that are green: King Kong green palette swap
Vacation spots: Come to Portugal
Weekend Activities: Annoying Mr. Wilson
Hobbies: Enter the Dragon
Tools: Kull the Conqueror
Athlete who does commercials: Kulk Hogan
After dinner foods: Kracker Barrel
(for the last two, we were really tired and K is a dififcult letter, things devolved into funny replacements).
Anytime C or P comes up there are way too many penis jokes but that might just be my friends.
Yeah, the game takes an exceptionally long time to play and the more people you have playing the longer it takes. Usually when I play with my friends it is spread out over several sessions so that it doesn't turn into a 12 hour fiending session. Though to be honest I have done that as well...I am not proud.
Origin: theRealElMucho
The game he's thinking of is almost certainly not Ticket To Ride. TTR does not have the expanding westwards mechanic. Frankly there's an almost unlimited number of train games that he could be thinking of. Maybe one of the 18XX series of games?
This shouldn't, however, hide the fact that Ticket to Ride is an exceptionally good game for a mixed gaming group. Very easy to teach rules, plenty of replayability and plays well with 3, 4 or 5. To give some context I rank teaching TTR as a level easier than teaching Puerto Rico. PR is a pretty simple game in theory but it requires a lot of explanation of the special effects of each role and the effect that picking each role will have on the dynamic of the game.
TTR is a great choice. Some of the other suggestions in this thread, not so much.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
Edit: shout out to Trivial pursuit.