Favourite board games

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Favourite board games

Ginger Yellow wrote: Yeah, fizz buzz is very common drinking game. We played with the variant that if it gets to 21 you make up a new rule (skip a player on prime numbers, that sort of thing).

What kind of John Nash game is that!?

[treibeis]

Favourite board games

Playing games in the evenings at home, playing games when you're drinking with your mates, playing games when you're out with your family - do you people ever have time to have conversations with anybody?

[WOM]

Favourite board games

You approve of conversations with people?

[WOM]

Favourite board games

I should note that Toronto's official OTF'thon pub (C'est What?) is a board games pub. We've never done that, though. Just drank and talked.

[treibeis]

Favourite board games

WOM wrote: You approve of conversations with people?

I disapprove of them less than I do of board games.

[linus]

Favourite board games

Land Waster wrote: Whenever I feel like mentally wrestling with the complexities of Hindu philosophy, I get out the Snakes and Ladders board.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakes_and_Ladders#History

Snakes and Ladders has been "sanitized" in the US, with snakes getting replaced by chutes ("Chutes and Ladders"). In Canada, it's still Snakes and Ladders, if it's an old set, but the newer versions are much more likely to be with chutes due to the domination of American retail chains like Walmart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZJOIMzsjgA

[WOM]

Favourite board games

treibeis wrote:

You approve of conversations with people?

I disapprove of them less than I do of board games.

I suspect you're not a card or dice game man, either.

[WOM]

Favourite board games

linus wrote:

Whenever I feel like mentally wrestling with the complexities of Hindu philosophy, I get out the Snakes and Ladders board.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakes_and_Ladders#History

Snakes and Ladders has been "sanitized" in the US, with snakes getting replaced by chutes ("Chutes and Ladders"). In Canada, it's still Snakes and Ladders, if it's an old set, but the newer versions are much more likely to be with chutes due to the domination of American retail chains like Walmart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZJOIMzsjgA

Which is odd, as nobody here calls slides 'chutes'.

[Ginger Yellow]

Favourite board games

What kind of John Nash game is that!?

a) This is a drinking game played mostly at university

b) The harder the rule, the more people have to drink.

[ursus arctos]

Favourite board games

Does anyone know why/how the snakes became chutes?

Was it typical US ridiculousness w/r/t associations with the Devil in the Garden of Eden (notwithstanding "our" long tradition of snake-handling religious wackos)?

[sw2borshch]

Favourite board games

Are chutes Scottish slides? It seems a very DC Thomson word.

[Guy Profumo]

Favourite board games

san2sboro wrote: Are chutes Scottish slides? It seems a very DC Thomson word.

"Chutes" are curved, presumably, whereas "Slides" are straight?

[WOM]

Favourite board games

Apparently it changed to 'chutes' in 1943 when Milton Bradley brought it to the US. The 'idea' (based on the illustrations) was that you were rewarded for good behaviours (ladders), and punished for bad ones (chutes).

[treibeis]

Favourite board games

WOM wrote: I suspect you're not a card or dice game man, either.

You bally well know I'm not.

I'm prepared to hammer anybody at darts or pool in the pub, but that's where my 'gaming' begins and ends.

Mind you, hammering the locals at darts isn't exactly difficult, and I'm no more than average myself. I've never met a German who can play darts properly. They tell you they can, they think they can, yet put them in front of a dartboard - a proper dartboard, not the electronic dross - and they start throwing darts as if they're Flamenco dancing or something.

And don't get me started on German pool (not that you did; I got myself started, and I'm going to finish). Despite the alleged ruthlessness of their efficiency, they don't have proper rules.

For example, you don't get penalised for a foul. You could pick a ball up, put it in your pocket and fuck off to the cinema for two hours and you'd still get off scot-free.

[linus]

Favourite board games

Uncle Ethan wrote: Linus can you share a link for the online version of Risk you referred to? Thanks.

Here you go:
http://www.conquerclub.com

It's free to play up to 4 games, though you can't start games as a freemium, you can join open games others have set up. There are several settings:
-deployment of troops at the begining: manual, or automatic (where all your territories start out with 3 of your troops)
-reinforcements at the end of your turn: unlimited (you can move your troops to a connected territory as much as you want), chained (only one reinforcement is allowed) or adjacent (only 1 troop movement, to an adjacent territory)
-cards or spoils. You can have games with no cards/spoils, or with flat spoils (where you get 10 troops for cashing in a set of 3 mixed color cards, 8 troops for a set of three blues, 6 for three greens, 4 for reds), or escalating (first set of any color traded in gets 4 troops, then the second player trading gets 6, then 8, 10, 12, 15, 20, 25 and so forth)
-"FOG" mode: under this mode, you only see enemy troops located in territories that are adjacent to yours, which allows for interesting strategies.

A good map to start with is the "Classic", which is essentially the basic Risk map (with slight differences for copyright reasons):
http://www.conquerclub.com/game.php?game=15316278

Those advanced variants of Risk really lend themselves well to playing online, it's not very taxing as you have 24hrs to make your move and don't have to bother with dealing cards and setting up the board. Once you get the hang of the online version, you can experiment with advanced features and interesting maps. The most interesting way to play it is in teams, 2v2, 3v3 or 4v4 because (a) it reduces the luck factor (b) it's more complex and dynamic as you can deploy your troops on your teammates territories and mount surprise attacks or coordinate attacks to eliminate opponents' weakest player.

If you do join and need pointers, or a teammate, you can contact me, my handle is General_Tao (named after the chinese dish).

[ursus arctos]

Favourite board games

Known south of the 49th Parallel as General Tso?

Or something more philosophically complex and perhaps vegetarian?

[linus]

Favourite board games

Yes it's the same character, and by far the most popular chinese dish up here. My first pick, Colonel_Mustard, was already taken.

[ursus arctos]

Favourite board games

Dommage

[Pietro Paolo Virdis]

Favourite board games

Loads of free online boardgames here

[Levin]

Favourite board games

I've never really got The Resistance when I've played, I can't really articulate why though. I've never had much fun playing Pandemic either, too much direction from experienced players.

I do enjoy the more popular 'german' games but I never end up buying them. I liked Agricola but it seemed like a lot of work. I do love Power Grid, the market mechanism is sooo clever. Ticket to Ride is fun but can be over done.

Sans2's mention of Lost Valley of the Dinosaurs reminds me of Escape from Atlantis which is great fun. Also from my youth is the amazing Labyrinth.

Mumpo, thanks for your recommendations! I've been toying with getting both Brass and Manhattan Project.

Last time I was in a shop I bought Wir sind das Volk which is a two player game about Germany from 1945 - 1989. One player tries to hold together the DDR and the other tries to pressure it into collapse being the west.

I am terrible for buying games that I never get to play. In the past year I've got Kohle & Kolonie (about coal mining in the Ruhr), 1830 (which I'm dying to play) and a COIN game about Colombia in the 80s. It's part war game part wooden block game. It does need four players though really.

Those games (the last two at least) are very long and fairly complicated, the sort of thing that takes an entire day or long evening.

My favourite is probably Liberte, which is about elections in France after the revolution. But others I like are...

Conquest of Paradise. A sort of civ game about the polynesian colonisation of the pacific.

Primordial Soup. You have some amoeba, in the primordial soup, and they poop and eat and float about. And then they get mutations which you can use to help them survive. It really is a fun game.

Hare & Tortoise. Simple racing game with no randomness. Move by playing carrots, pick up carrots depending upon which square you land on. The important thing is that moving further costs an exponentially larger number of carrots.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Puerto Rico.

Oh, finally, Waldschattenspiel. A child's game to play in the dark. You have gnomes who have to hide behind trees and a witch, whose playing piece is a tea light.

[Levin]

Favourite board games

As if that wasn't long enough. I used to play Civilisation but I can't be doing with spending 12 hours on a gmae with not much going on. But its a good way to spend time with 6 other people.

[steveeeeeeeee]

Favourite board games

Levin wrote: I'm surprised no one has mentioned Puerto Rico

I did, on the first page, love it. We've got San Juan too for when we go on holiday.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Favourite board games

treibeis wrote: Playing games in the evenings at home, playing games when you're drinking with your mates, playing games when you're out with your family - do you people ever have time to have conversations with anybody?

Board gaming is an incredibly social and sociable thing. Much more so than drinking.

[Ginger Yellow]

Favourite board games

Oh, finally, Waldschattenspiel. A child's game to play in the dark. You have gnomes who have to hide behind trees and a witch, whose playing piece is a tea light.

That looks very cool. It reminds me a lot of the iOS game Helsing's Fire.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Favourite board games

1. Scrabble (by a mile)
2. Trivial Pursuit
3. Chess
4. Backgammon
5. Yahtzee

I'm very happy no one has mentioned Monopoly—I really hate the game and it's unfairly weighted towards how lucky you are in the first few circuits.

Board games are huge in Germany. Not played that many of them (Uno mostly, which isn't a board game).