![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Games meme
What board games or card games in your collection do you play the most, and why?
What games do you most want to get, and why?
Here's mine:
Our most played game is Settlers of Catan. It's visualy attractive, it never takes more than around an hour, the skill level is high enough to be interesting, but not so high that you can't play it when feeling tired. It plays well with 2-4 players (though we use an optional rule relating to the robber when playing with two in order to avoid it sitting on one tile for half the game)
Second most played is Majhongg. However, this has had to stay unplayed while Henry is at university as it needs 3-4 players. It's got enough math that you can play it very tactically if you want, or you can play it on feel and still do reasonably well. The pieces are nice and chunky and never get damaged or lost.
Elfenland is probably in at number three, though Scrabble has been making a few gains recently. Elfenland is a 'travelling salesman problem' game and the beautiful board and playing pieces make a delight out of what is really a very abstract game.
GAmes I'd like to have include Ursuppe. Henry played this at a convention and has been raving about it ever since. You play small organisms in the primeval soup and feed on one anther and excrete substances that may also be food for other players. I don't know much about the tactics, merely that it's supposed to play very well.
If a close friend of ours didn't bring 'Ra' round fairly often, I'd want my own copy. It's basically a bidding game and there's some nifty mechanics to ensure that the player buying the worst items often ends up with better money tokens the next round. The real fun is in deciding how long to hold on before calling for a bidding round as extra items keep being added, but sometimes there's a real nasty gets added to the line that may make earlier ones worthless.
Ticket to Ride - this one was mentioned at the games panel at Worldcon - any game that has won 'Spiel des Jahres' is usually worth looking at.
What would your choices be?
What games do you most want to get, and why?
Here's mine:
Our most played game is Settlers of Catan. It's visualy attractive, it never takes more than around an hour, the skill level is high enough to be interesting, but not so high that you can't play it when feeling tired. It plays well with 2-4 players (though we use an optional rule relating to the robber when playing with two in order to avoid it sitting on one tile for half the game)
Second most played is Majhongg. However, this has had to stay unplayed while Henry is at university as it needs 3-4 players. It's got enough math that you can play it very tactically if you want, or you can play it on feel and still do reasonably well. The pieces are nice and chunky and never get damaged or lost.
Elfenland is probably in at number three, though Scrabble has been making a few gains recently. Elfenland is a 'travelling salesman problem' game and the beautiful board and playing pieces make a delight out of what is really a very abstract game.
GAmes I'd like to have include Ursuppe. Henry played this at a convention and has been raving about it ever since. You play small organisms in the primeval soup and feed on one anther and excrete substances that may also be food for other players. I don't know much about the tactics, merely that it's supposed to play very well.
If a close friend of ours didn't bring 'Ra' round fairly often, I'd want my own copy. It's basically a bidding game and there's some nifty mechanics to ensure that the player buying the worst items often ends up with better money tokens the next round. The real fun is in deciding how long to hold on before calling for a bidding round as extra items keep being added, but sometimes there's a real nasty gets added to the line that may make earlier ones worthless.
Ticket to Ride - this one was mentioned at the games panel at Worldcon - any game that has won 'Spiel des Jahres' is usually worth looking at.
What would your choices be?
no subject
Ticket to Ride I enjoy lots and Transamerica, new game Niagra which has lots of lovely sparkly jewels in it and you add transparent discs to make canoes fall off the rapids. I like the danger!
no subject
Mostly I like card games, possibly because they were the ones you couldn't say in advance who out of me and my sister were going to win.
no subject
(1) Bohnanza
(2) Alhambra
(3) Munchkin
no subject
I also agree with Mahjong, but I haven't played it in too long. We used to have these nice long afternoons of playing the South Pacific variant. Our old venerable set is about 35 years old, and it's made of either bone or ivory, because the tiles, which used to be cream coloured when I was a child, are dark yellow now.
And I also agree about Elfenland, because it is one of the only games I can think of that works just as well for two as for five, and it has a nice strategic component, and the pieces are so pretty. Once you've grasped the rules, it isn't too complicated either.
I also have to add in GooMishGoo, which is a card game, a variation of "Oh Hell!"; it is of the same school as 500 or bridge, in that one has trumps and takes tricks, but (a) trumps are determined randomly (b) the number of cards dealt are reduced by one each round, until you get down to 1, then it increases again (c) you have to get your exact bid (one can bid zero) and (d) one bids by sticking one's fingers out with the number of tricks you're bidding for, and everyone does this at the same time, so that nobody can adjust their bid depending on what other people bid. This can lead to hilarious situations where someone loses because they won all the tricks, or that someone can take a trick with a 5 because they led and nobody has any of that suit. One simply can't take it seriously.
Games that I would most like to have a copy of?
- Search For The Nile -- my brother had a copy of this, and I think he may still have it. It's impossible to get nowadays. It's an explorer game, each player is an explorer in the Dark Continent of Africa, making up expeditions, mapping, dealing with hostile natives and natural disasters, and trying to get back to port before one's food runs out, and then turning around and doing it all again. The cool thing about this game is that the board itself is a blank, which one draws on with crayons during the game, and then wipes off at the end, so each game is different.
- Awful Green Things From Outer Space -- it was just so silly-fun when we played it, and it's nice to have a game that works for two players.
no subject
no subject
LOL! Shows Richard has good taste. Thanks for the thought.
It's good, but I really feel that computer games could do it better now.
Some aspects of it, yes, but half the fun of a board game is the social interaction, which you don't get with computer games. Even networked ones.
Here are my top 3
2) Res Publica - Another card game and takes 30-40 minutes so we use as a filler before our bus/train
3) Settlers of Catan - I love this game too and keep meaning to suggest again it on ouir Sunday night games meet
Mark