Recommend Me A Board Game
Posted on 27th Nov 2009 at 10:48 by Joe Martin with 46 comments
My love of games extends further than just computer games, you know. I’m also something of a board game fiend – a fan of games in any form, to tell the truth. In the last few months I’ve especially enjoyed getting together with a few friends to play some board games, and that enjoyment is hopefully going to be buoyed further by a recent discovery of mine.
I found a really cool shop in the centre of nearby Reading – one which I’ve walked past many times but only recently investigated. It’s called Eclectic Games and is a board game and collectible card game specialist.
Eclectic Games is very much My Kind Of Place. It’s large and warmly decorated, with a huge selection of games, both niche and well-known. It also has a library of games - which you’re free to try out in the gaming hall out back - and the owners regularly organise events where you can meet other gamers and get involved in tournaments. It’s small enough to be charming and independent too – exactly the type of place I’d like to support with my patronage.
I’m looking for a game that’s not too complex
The only problem is the overwhelming amount of choice on offer, as I’m not exactly in a position to take up another new and expensive hobby like D&D or Magic: The Gathering. So, I need your help picking a new game to play – as well as a few gift ideas, perhaps.
To give you some idea of my tastes, I’ll say that I usually like games that have a random element or a large replay factor. I like games that have a good sense of humour or which provide a chance for players to talk while they play. It needs to scale to two players and if it caters for more than six then that’s great. A playing time of 45 to 75 minutes is ideal and a horror or geek theme is considered a bonus, though the barrier of entry shouldn’t be too high as to intimidate new players.
Current favourite game: Last Night on Earth
Other games I usually enjoy playing are things like Atmosfear: The DVD Board Game and I’ve recently fallen in love with Harry’s copy of The Last Night on Earth. I’m partial to a bit of Settlers of Catan, though Trivial Pursuit makes it into the mix on occasion too. When I’m not playing with a larger group of friends then Lost Cities is something I like to play with my girlfriend in short, easy bursts, though I can swing to the other end of the scale with something like Dune.
Games I don’t like are Monopoly, which I’m banned from playing on account of my competitiveness, Zombies!!!, which I found very disappointing and shallow and The Key to the Kingdom on account of it’s complexity.
There are some titles that I’m explicitly interested in, such as Arkham Horror, but I’m mostly putting this out there because I want to find something new to play. Throw your suggestions in to the comments and I’ll let you know what I settle on in a future post.
I found a really cool shop in the centre of nearby Reading – one which I’ve walked past many times but only recently investigated. It’s called Eclectic Games and is a board game and collectible card game specialist.
Eclectic Games is very much My Kind Of Place. It’s large and warmly decorated, with a huge selection of games, both niche and well-known. It also has a library of games - which you’re free to try out in the gaming hall out back - and the owners regularly organise events where you can meet other gamers and get involved in tournaments. It’s small enough to be charming and independent too – exactly the type of place I’d like to support with my patronage.
I’m looking for a game that’s not too complex
The only problem is the overwhelming amount of choice on offer, as I’m not exactly in a position to take up another new and expensive hobby like D&D or Magic: The Gathering. So, I need your help picking a new game to play – as well as a few gift ideas, perhaps.
To give you some idea of my tastes, I’ll say that I usually like games that have a random element or a large replay factor. I like games that have a good sense of humour or which provide a chance for players to talk while they play. It needs to scale to two players and if it caters for more than six then that’s great. A playing time of 45 to 75 minutes is ideal and a horror or geek theme is considered a bonus, though the barrier of entry shouldn’t be too high as to intimidate new players.
Current favourite game: Last Night on Earth
Other games I usually enjoy playing are things like Atmosfear: The DVD Board Game and I’ve recently fallen in love with Harry’s copy of The Last Night on Earth. I’m partial to a bit of Settlers of Catan, though Trivial Pursuit makes it into the mix on occasion too. When I’m not playing with a larger group of friends then Lost Cities is something I like to play with my girlfriend in short, easy bursts, though I can swing to the other end of the scale with something like Dune.
Games I don’t like are Monopoly, which I’m banned from playing on account of my competitiveness, Zombies!!!, which I found very disappointing and shallow and The Key to the Kingdom on account of it’s complexity.
There are some titles that I’m explicitly interested in, such as Arkham Horror, but I’m mostly putting this out there because I want to find something new to play. Throw your suggestions in to the comments and I’ll let you know what I settle on in a future post.
46 Comments
Discuss in the forums Replyhttp://www.worldofmunchkin.com/
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/37904
I'd also recommend having a go on the third edition of Talisman - it's a fun, expandable fantasy board game for 1-6 players. It doesn't take too long to play and (unlike many Games Workshop games) doesn't require you to spend ridiculous amounts of money on overpriced lumps of lead. I don't think you can buy it new any more, but you can pick it up on eBay for around £40.
Torres siple but very replayable.
Munchkin, does it get better with more card sets? I just have the starterset and it's...just not fun. You spend ages beeing rediculessly weak then finish the game immediately when strength is gained.
Glad to see you're discovering board games, LNoE is one of my favourites too (I think at it's height we must have played at least 2 games every day), I recommend the Growing Hunger expansion if you don't already have it, it does really add to the game.
Arkham Horror is a very good game, but it can be very long. My first game literally took all day, the main problem with this is I hadn't the chance to figure out the rules before hand so it was learning as we were going. It's best with 2-4 players IMO (with 2 players, each person controlling 2 investigators). You can play with more but 4 investigators is the sweet spot for balancing the difficulty. Expect your first game or two to be quite confusing, but given it's really bad start for me and my friends, at one point it was my friend and I's favourite. Great thing is there's lots of expansions out there too for when you're starting to find the base game too easy.
Pandemic 2-4 players (2-5 w/ expansion)
Pandemic is a great little game, it's a co-op game where you and your friends have to save the world from 4 diseases that are threatening to take over and wipe out humanity. It's quite a quick game, only takes 30-45 min, but it's pretty intense. You it looks like you've got things under control and then Bad Things happen and a disease surges and infects several cities at once. There's also an expansion available for this now which is very good once you've cracked the base game.
Galaxy Trucker - 2-4 players (2-5 w/ expansion)
Everyone I've played this with loves the game, even people who aren't really into board gaming. In this game you're basically a red-neck space trucker, except your ship is made out of the cargo and you build it yourself.
There are two parts to the game, building the ship, and flying the ship.
Each player has a board which has an empty ship-shape grid, and in the middle you have a big pile of the ship building blocks, square cardboard bits that fit onto the grid. There are several different types, engines, guns, crew compartments, storage bays, shields, generators, etc. When the game starts everyone scrambles, picking up a piece at a time and deciding whether to put it on the ship or put it back down face up (where you or another player can take it later). This is quite frantic as you're trying to make a ship well made but also quickly, because the order you finish in is the order you start off in. There is a timing rule to this but we don't particularly like it and just say when the first person finishes it starts a timer for the other people to finish in. Usually in your first few games the ships will be horribly built which makes the next part funny.
In the flying the ship section you have a pile of cards, in the first round you have about 8 I believe. The person in the lead draws the card and then does whatever it says. Some examples are:
Open space: you count up your engines and move that many spaces forward, starting with the first player
Planet cards: Starting with the first player, you can choose to land or not on several pictured planets, if you land you have a time delay (move back some spaces on the board) and then can take the goods pictured on the planets into your cargo bays (these are worth money at the end of the round)
Asteroids: Several asteroids fly at everyone's ships, the leader rolls a dice to determine where they hit, then every player checks to see what happens. For instance, small asteroids bounce off the hull, but if you've made your ship badly and it hits an open connector, that piece will be destroyed. Then you've got big asteroids that can only be blocked by shooting a laser at it.
Losing pieces is where the game gets really fun, if the piece you lost is holding other pieces to the ship, you'll lose those pieces too. The first time my friend played he made a really wide thin ship that was utterly destroyed, and I have one game where an asteroid hit a really weak point in my ship and half of it came away.
Then when no more cards remain whoever is in first gets the most money, last place gets the least. There's also a prize for the person with the prettiest ship (the person with the least open connectors). After that you flip your board over for the next round. You now have a bigger ship and the deck becomes bigger with nastier cards in there. There are 3 round in total, plus an advanced version of round 3 where you're trying to build on a starship enterprise looking grid which can be pretty challenging.
I've not played the expansion but it adds an extra player, advanced boards for rounds 1 and 2, and several new components and cards.
Battlestar Galactica Board game - 3-6 players (3-7 w/ expansion)
This is a fantastic game, but it can unfortunately be a bit inconsistent with it's awesome factor. Some games are utterly amazing, some games can be a bit ****.
This is a board game based on the new BSG series, made by the same guys as Arkham Horror. It's a co-op game but with a twist. Each person plays a character on Galactica and you're trying to get to Kobol. One player is the Admiral, and one is the President, but this can change. You're all working together to fend off cylon attacks and work out problems that arrive on the ship and the fleet. However, one or more people (depending on how many players there are) are actually cylons. They're trying to stop Galactica reaching Kobol. So in every game, you'll have at least one person who is trying to make it look like they're helping but at the same time, they're actually not. It's almost like combining Arkham Horror with poker and it can be a glorious combination.
As I said, it's a bit inconsistent sometimes, in some games, you might not get any combat for ages which can make it a bit dull, and the excitement of figuring out who the cylon player is really depends on how good they are at doing it. Usually the game really kicks in at the halfway point, usually people are willing to trust each other near the beginning, but at about the halfway point, you get games where you just have no idea who the cylon is and several people think you're the cylon. It can get pretty intense.
Although this game is 3-6 players, I would only play it with a minimum of 4 players, 5 or 6 is best, that way you're guaranteed 2 cylons. Makes things really fun when you have cylons trying to figure out who the other cylon is so they can work together.
While there is obviously a lot of BSG theme in here, my friend who has only heard of the series still really enjoyed the game, so don't worry about playing this one if you've never seen the series.
There is an expansion out, I haven't managed to play it yet, but it looks to be a really awesome expansion that could fix some of the consistency problems of the base game and add in lots of extra cool mechanics.
Fluxx
Lastly Fluxx, a short but sweet card game. It is a marmite game, some love it, some hate it, I and my friends love it. It just boils down to whether you can deal with chaos and if you can see the pattern in chaos. I think the main problem people have with it is they see it as being completely random, there is a big random element to it, but it's sort of like that random friend who's really weird but also really funny.
It's a game that the rules change constantly, it starts off where each player draws 1 card and plays one card. You can play cards that mean people draw more cards, play more cards, have a hand limit, introduce goals to win, give you items that might be what you need to win, or just play an action like take another turn or wipe out the rules.
It's great fun, possible to win in the first hand, but sometimes can go on for several reshuffles of the draw deck. I took it round to my aunt and uncles this summer and we played it at the BBQ the day after my cousin's wedding. We didn't manage to finish the game before I left but they were enjoying it so much I had to leave without it (there was a new version out anyway so I was looking for an excuse to buy it :p).
There are several themed decks of Fluxx too, which can be added together into one monster game. So far the ones that spring to mind are:
Regular Fluxx, now in it's 4th edition
Zombie Fluxx
Monty Python Fluxx
Stoner Fluxx
Martian Fluxx (I believe this isn't out yet)
Actually thinking about it, wasn't Fluxx in one of you're on our desks once?
Those games and LNoE are the groups favourites, I have a few more, A Touch of Evil (an Arkham crossed with Talisman game, themed like Sleepy Hollow, made by the same people as LNoE), Race for the Galaxy, Puerto Rico (this is sort of the thinking mans game, LNoE is the CoD of the board game world, PR is the Civ), Carcassonne, Fire and Axe, Revenge of the B-movie. Plus there are so many others I want to play but simply can't afford.
I would like to sugest you original Battletech boardgame, but could be hard to find (try eBay).
Have been playing it (PC version) again recently, lack of sleep due to it is killing me. :|
Can't think why the board version would be any less fun either :D
Got it already. It's in the cycle.
Also have Fluxx, but it gets a bit samey.
i think i might give that Last Night on Earth a go - might even be a handy christmas pressy for me wife...
We play almost the entire Axis and Allies series plus the Diplomacy game.
These are highly strategic games, that are somewhat complicated (especially some of the Axis and Allies versions) but we like it that way. You have to fight multiple fronts at once, predict moves of enemy armies and make/brake alliances. It is great fun if you like strategy, and they are very well balanced, but can take some time to learn.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ah/products
Randomness: Check, there is skill here but you never know if your brilliant plans will pan out as you intend. You also set out the checkpoints your self so no two games will use the exact same course.
Humor and social interaction: Definitely! Iv never played a game that gives rise to more hilarity. It even works as a good party game (as long as everyone is on about the same level of intoxication).
Playing time: Check, You can adjust the course to match your needs and most games end within the specified time.
Players and scalability: This is the only point that isnt a perfect fit, it doesnt scale well below 4 players without houserules (such as each player controling 2 robots or some such) but works perfectly with many players (you can play 8 players out of the box)
Theme and learning curve: You will have to decide if bored robots who decide to turn the factory to a racecourse qualifies as geek-theme or not but its great fun and easy to learn and teach (just take it step by step and all situations are easy to resolve).
Hope you enjoy it =)
WRT Munchkin - I have never had one move take anywhere near that long and usually find it pretty quick moving. Depending on who you have playing games can range from very quick to really, really long which is awesome if you can/want to play over a few evenings.
I have played it with multiple expansions and think its great. You do get some odd combinations but its really good fun.
Also worthwhile is the latest version of Space Hulk is well worth it - as others have suggested. Also looking up a copy of Hero Quest so worthwhile - I've not played it in years myself, but remember it fondly - you'd have to go hunting for a second hand copy however.
Its a racing game set in some far future where you take the role of a race-car driver. Basicly its Wipeout 2097 (or formula De meets carwars in boardgame terms) type of racing with weapons and obstacles and so on. Each player will have to choose when to shift up, when to brake, when its safe to turbo boost and so on. You build the track from several modular boards so you get a new course each time. You can play 2-6 players and it usually is done in about an hour.
Munchkin is a great game as well and is easy to pick up. The amount of backstabbing involved in the game is what can really draw it out so that a game might only last a 1/2 hour or, as in the last one I played, 4 hours. It really comes down to how many people are playing (6 in my last game) and how willing they are to screw each other in the end.
I would also recommend Talisman as mentioned above. I haven't played the most recent version but I hear it is as good as the previous ones. It should be easy to find as Fantasy Flight Games bought the rights recently and are actively publishing it as well as releasing expansions.
Any of the Avalon Hill Risk alternatives are good as well. My wife and I play Risk 2210 quite often and the small changes they make really change the game up and make it a great deal of fun.
Personally i think there are many better semi-light area control games out there...just do a quick search on www.boardgamegeek.com and you will see what i mean =)
I loved Hero Quest back in the day and would whole-heartedly agree with it as well as it's 4 expansions. However, a few of my friends a couple years later really got into Warhammer Quest which was basically a remake by the same company and should be easier to find but has a very similar play experience. It also got more support from Games Workshop/Citadel games and their fan community as it incorporated one of their main IPs instead of just being generic fantasy.
I never played warhammer quest so i wont comment on the game (i hear its good though) but i do know that it's a bitch to find at a decent price (that is, unless your willing to pay fantasy sums on ebay).
Escape From Colditz was another I used to enjoy a lot.
Several years ago at gaming convention I took part in a Reiner Knizia tournament. I'd never heard of him before but I had a lot of fun that day, playing 3 or 4 of his games and making it to the final.
The one I went out and bought afterwards was Samurai http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai_(board_game) although he has similar style games in different settings if feudal Japan isn't your thing.
Or play Go! As in the Chinese Go, or Chinese Chess(not go, Jiang Chi(?)).
EDIT: ah you're looking for a game that takes an hour to play... RISK 2210 is out then. You can lose an entire
gameday to that when you first start playing, but you quickly speed it up to a few hours.Another game you should track down is called Puerto Rico. Played it a couple times at a friends house, it's great.
I really need to break this one out more, my friends aren't into euros too much unfortunately :(
(a big improvement, as it used to be held in Manchester Uni's Woolton Hall - not renowned for its food or accomodation)
The next one is being held 8-10 January. They don't have a website, just an email address (bookings@stabcon.org.uk) for details.
The format is generally "Run What You Brung". ie. people bring their own games to play, but there are usually a dealer or two attending also.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminati_%28game%29
Space Crusade (same game really, but 4 player 3 different marine chapters vs ork/genestealer/chaos)
Dungeon Quest
Blood Bowl (I got given 2 different versions of this a few months back)
Cluedo
Go for Broke I seem to remeber this being fun
I've got a Star Wars boardgame on my wardrobe that I've never even played.
Have you played any of these in the last year? I'd love to hear how accurate the recommendations were for you!