2004 Board Games Gift Guide

The Morning News has come out with a nice guide to good gift boardgames, while Funagain Games has the list of the 2004 Board and Card Games of the Year (and the runners-up). Like a bowling ball with your name engraved upon it, these make great gifts for your significant other. Any other suggestions for good adult boardgames?

Slashdot account

[fembots]

Last year I signed up a Slashdot account for my better half, what a mistake! We've been fighting for the first to open door, switch on the TV and whatnot ever since.

But seriously, how about a set of Mahjong [wikipedia.org], it's something different and provides endless hours of fun. They now come in travel size that you can bring along in trips.

And are there any ethnic-based board games that you can learn about other cultures (not Indians being shot at).

Betrayal at House on the Hill

[StupidEngineer]

My suggestion is Betrayal at House on the Hill [wizards.com] from WotC. My friends went to GenCon in Anaheim last weekend and picked up the last copy they had. (It was selling like hot cakes). I can see why. The board changes every game giving players get that haunted house feeling. But the coolest part is that the game objectives aren't revealed until midway through the game (about 50 different game objectives, all unknown) when one of the players becomes the 'traitor' and plays against everyone else. It's fun.

"Diplomacy" from Avalon-Hill is a must-have

[Boone^]

It's like Risk, but targeted for adults and mature teenagers. You still vie for control of Europe, but there's no dice, you have to sign secret (or not so secret) pacts with your opponents, and there's no battles. Moving into an unoccupied territory makes it yours, but if the territory has a supply depot you could increase your armies (and decrease the armies of the opponent who was just on that square). During the moving phase if 2 armies attempt to occupy the same land they bounce. I could go on and on. Oh, and reserve 4-5 hours to complete a game.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q= diplomacy+board+game&btnG=Search [google.com]

Re:Trivial Pursuit

[eln]

It used to be that you could buy one edition, then buy different card packs of other editions for cheaper than buying a whole game. My family used to have like 5 or 6 different card packs, and one board. Now, they don't seem to do that anymore, and 30 bucks a pop seems a little steep for different questions, and a bunch of pieces that are exact duplicates of the crap I already have (except with different pictures on the board).

Re:Trivial Pursuit

[Lev13than]

I'm from Canada you insensitive clod! The American History category is crappy enough to make us take hours upon end to find one that's easy enough to answer :)

Ironically, Trivial Pursuit is a Canadian invention. Chris Haney worked as a photo editor at the Montreal Gazette, and Scott Abbott was a sports journalist for The Canadian Press. A good history of the game can be found here [about.com]

Settlers of Catan

[BobBoyken]

...continues to satisfy. Even after several years, the original remains the best. I have the 5/6 player expansion and the gameplay is good, but the original version, played with exactly four people provides the most consistently fun and even gameplay of any game I have ever played. I like the fact that we can complete a game in an hour or so, but my favorite "feature" is that the games are almost always extremely close, so everyone feels like they have a chance to win.

Mindtrap

[echocharlie]

I'm partial to Mind Trap [mindtrapgames.com]. It's like Trivial Pursuit with Riddles. Here's a sample question:

A black dog stands in the middle of an intersection in a town painted black. None of the street lights are working due to a power failure caused by a local storm. A car with two broken headlights drives towards the dog but turns in time to avoid hitting him. How could the driver have seen the dog in time?

Settlers is a great game!

[Savatte]

Very modifiable, hackable, and completey different each time you play. You can make up your own rules, like only moving the robber a certain number of spaces, or using other players' ports. Try mixing the land tiles in with the water for extra randomness.

And the Cities And Knights expansion for the true hardcore player is a great gift. Of course, the true hardcore player probably already has this. And the Seafarers. Plus the 5-6 player expansions for all 3...

My favorites

[Komi]

I'm an avid board game player. I love to play games with big groups, and I love one's with just my wife.

Here's a list of games that I play a lot (in order that I think of them):

• Settlers of Cataan (and Seafarers expansino)
• Carcassonne (and many expansions)
• Game of Thrones (with Clash of Kings Expansion)
• Risk: Godstorm
• Ticket to Ride (great for people new to gaming)
• Bang (great for large groups of 6-8)
• St. Petersburg
• Diplomacy (can cause you to hate your friends!)

Here's a few games that are good for 2 players:

• Carcassonne
• Knightmare Chess (1 and 2)
• Settlers of Cataan: Card Game (with expansions)
• St. Petersburg
• Ticket to Ride
• Balloon Cup
• Battle Cry

komi

Bad list !!! Use the offficial gamers database !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

This weekly updated (as needed) list of the top 100 games (countless more in the full list) complete with total votes and standard deviation scores :

http://scv.bu.edu/~aarondf/Top100/

voted on by thousands of board gamers!

bookmark it.

All your favorite baord games are in it (sometimes under german original release spelings)

Most of my favorites still in publication made it to the top 100 in THAT LIST.

I'd compare it fully to the other list in the news link but it was slashdotted instantly. Please avoid slashdotting
http://scv.bu.edu/~aarondf/Top100/
though its a major university, it may still be possible.

that list is a true gem,

by the way "Puerto Rico" is currently top game.

Lost Cities is still in top 35

a decent sampling of the top 60 games have been turned into online versions on a variety of free little known java game multiplayer web sites, ad free, etc.

Re:Adult Boardgames?

[gosand]

But for the love of God, put away the engraved bowling ball before you start. (Trust me on this.)

That would be the "goatse game". I think I'll pass.

For our wedding, my wife and I registered for, and received, Rock'em Sock'em Robots, Operation, Connect Four, Mastermind, and a few other classic games. They are still fun. We are planning on having a party where you have different game stations, and everyone visits various stations. If you win, you stay at that station (and do a shot). If you lose, you have to go to a different station. (and probably do a shot) Games are much more fun when there is drinking involved.

Zillions of Games

[SeanDuggan]

Yes, I know that, as a computer game, it's strictly not a board game, but Zillions of Games [zillionsofgames.com] is one of the best generic board game simulators available on the computer, at least for discrete non-math-based, non-card-based games. About 30 games and their variants are included with the default installation and users can modify these files or create their own to create new games. The best part of it is that ZoG has an AI such that you can input the rules of a game and the computer can generally play competently enough to beat you a large amount of the time by brute force. This is an especially excellent program for people who are fond of chess variants [chessvariants.com] and want to see how an invented variant might play out. It allowed me to implement a chess variant I wrote in middle school [chessvariants.org]. ^_^ And showed me that the variant was hideously unbalanced, but that's another matter entirely...

Re:Settlers of Catan!

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew Catan would pop up in this thread. This German Game is so well balanced between probability, bartering, and good old fashioned down'n'dirty strategy that it is nearly impossible to get a strong advantage from the beginning. Excellent design: when you play for the first time, there comes a point where you sit back, smirk and think "holy shit".

Here's the company site:

http://www.mayfairgames.com/mfg-shop/0480-0499/q ps /0483.html

You can also buy it here:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00001ZT4 D/ 104-1779319-6863144

Three wining games

[SuperMallen]

1. Settlers of Catan (already mentioned)
2. Carcassone
3. Acquire

All of these games have the four attributes which make good adult board games:

- They are fun to play
- The more you play, the more strategy you develop
- They take around an hour
- No one gets eliminated

Re:Settlers of Catan!

[Senobyzal]

Settlers is a great game; I've converted most of our circle of friends to it and we've played about 10 matches total (most with the 5-6 player expansion). Almost all of the games have been balanced and tight until the very end.

There's a java version with AI bots at http://settlers.cs.northwestern.edu/ [northwestern.edu]. Although sometimes the servers get clogged and you cannot get on, there's also a mirror linked at that site.

Carcassonne

[Kraegar]

The first game I've played that I enjoy more then the Settlers of Catan. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/822 (Both Settlers and Carcassonne are incredibly fun, go get them now if you've never played it)

Re:Settlers of Catan!

[Anonymous Coward]

Definitely recommend using the Cities and Knights expansion.

The same guy, Klaus Tuber also created a game called Starfarers, which is quite good.

Re:What! No Risk?

[mjwills]

Risk? You need to play some good games. http://www.boardgamegeek.com

History of the World - and others not to be missed

[andrewbaldwin]

If you've never played this you've missed a treat.

Played in 7 rounds (epochs) you need to gain (and keep territory; opportunities for 'stitching up' your fellow players -- great fun (lasts around 3 hours).

Other great board games (which we've played for over 12 years without tiring of them) include:

Kingmaker - England at end of 15th Century - Wars of the Roses. Great game but can sometimes drag on.

Plague - a really wacky (if slightly tasteless game of gathering corpses in Black Death Weymouth (a town on the south coast of England - the game has a passing acquaintance with real history). Whoever created it had a real sense of humour!

Brittania - Britain from romans to normans - manage your invaders / settlers to get the right areas at the right time.

Civilization -- brilliant game but a real 'all nighter!' - good mix of competition / cooperation / trading / development. Not rlated to the all time brilliant Sid meier game of the same name (but there are several similarities)

Flux - a wacky little card game where the rules, and the goal of the game change all the time

I could go on.... as a games fan I spend most Sunday nights with a group of friends, a board game, several cups of tea and many Jaffa cakes (a chocolate and orange biscuit popular in the UK) -- GREAT ;-)

BTW I have no connection with the makers of any of the above.
Don't know how easilyany of the above can be obtained outside the UK.

The Dot (Box) Game

[dman123]

So this isn't an actual board game unless you count a piece of paper as a board. At least it is free.

Take a large piece of paper and make a grid of dots that leaves enough room for a single legible letter inside the confines of each square (3/8" x 3/8"?). Make sure the paper is at least 20" x 30" to get enough of a grid. There is only a minor peanalty for trying to use equivalent metric units.

Everyone knows how to play this one, right? Connect two vertically or horizontally adjacent dots and write in your initial if you happen to complete a 1 x 1 square. Repeat until you cannot complete a square with just one line. The winner is the one with the most initialed squares when the grid is 100% filled in with squares.

The game works best when you see your opponent almost every day for just a few minutes at a time. Perfect for killing time in between (or during) school classes.

Reid Strand, if you are out there, I demand a rematch from our game in Ms. Moran's french class!

Re:Do not pass "Go"

[Sabaki]

Yep, I very specifically didn't say that Go was easier overall, just that it's easier to teach. I was playing Chess for twenty years before I learned about en passant. I've taught Go to classrooms of kids within a few minutes, and they got a kick out of playing right out of the gate. But I admit that the strategies and tactics get complicated quickly, which is why I always advise the 9x9 board for beginning players. As for the Western mind being used to the concepts behind Chess, but not Go, all the more reason to expose more people to the latter. I think if we all had a competitive mindset that only required a little more than our opponent, rather than violent, bloody death, we'd be better off. (Granted, it's certainly not a panacea in Asia.)

Incidentally, "claim the middle, threaten as much space as possible" are valid Go strategies, too.

Scruples, Psychologizer, Articulate

[Bifurcati]

A fabulous game is Scruples [scruplesgame.com] (or "A Question of Scruples" formally.) It poses moral dilemmas such as

You scrape a car on the way out of the carpark. No-one sees you. Do you leave a note?

and

A magazine offers you $10,000 for a nude photo you have of your ex-lover. Do you accept?

You have to ask these questions of your friends, and predict what they would do. You can also challenge them if you think they're bluffing, and argue your case to the rest of the players who must decide who they believe. (We actually play it where everyone tells the truth; we find it makes for more interesting after dinner conversations.) The Millenium edition is great, or you can pick up older editions on Ebay for very little (most questions still fine, although occasionally one is a little outdated.)

"Psychologzier" is another game in a similar vein, and is great fun too, but is out of print. You can still pick it up on Ebay every couple of weeks or so, though. Well worth it! Oh, and "ImagineIff" is great too. (Even if my mathematician friends call it "Imagine if and only if"...)

Articulate [peedeetoys.com.au] is another fabulous game, a sort of verbal Pictionary somewhat akin to Taboo and is absolutely hilarious. Great fun!

Finally, you should try Killer Bunnies [killerbunnies.com]. Hilarious when you've got a group of friends, and the designers have put a lot of work into making this quirky game fun. Lots of expansion packs, too!