Favorite (non-computer) game no one has heard of?

For me, it’s Skitgubbe:

http://www.pagat.com/beating/mattis.html

I usually play with anti-trump rules, and with an additional house rule by which playing a 9 reverses the direction of play.

I also very much like Paskahousu, which is a kind of cross between Skitgubbe and B.S. It has a nice rule by which if you play a 2 (or what you claim is a 2- the cards are played face down,) the only acceptable play for the next player is either a 2, or to pass and take a card from the deck. This means that play will continue with each player either passing or playing yet another 2 until somebody decides that surely there aren’t that many 2’s in the deck, and calls the bluff.

http://www.pagat.com/beating/paskahou.html

What are your favorite (but obscure) games?

-Ben

One of my favorites is quoridor. Here’s what the board looks like. On your turn, you have a choice of moving your piece one square or putting a wall down to impede your opponent, with the stipulation that your walls can’t completely box in your opponent. The first player to get all the way across wins.

Settlers of Cataan was a fantastic game to come out of Germany within the last 4 years or so. This game is designed for 3-4 players but you can buy an expansion so you can include 5-6 players. The premise of the game is that your’e on this island and the object is to produce and trade resources in order to build roads, towns, and cities. The first person to get 10 points wins the game. Like any great game the rules are easy to learn but playing it is kind of complicated.
Supremacy was a game that came out some time in the late 80’s or early 90’s. Players took control of the various continents and competed for resources and technology. Not only did one have to worry about armies and navies one also had to keep an eye on the stock market and the amount of resources which were available. One thing that kept this from being a great game was the reliance on the market. It seemed if one did well in the market then one could win the game with little difficulty. That and if someone developed nuclear weapons then it was felt that the game was over.

Babylon 5 Wars is my favorite space based table top war game since Star Fleet Battles. Set in the same universe as the popular science fiction series players take control of ships from various races and do battle. There are a variety of ships for each race including destroyers, carriers, heavy cruisers, scout ships, and of course fighters.

Maul of America is a game where you and some buddies must stop a hoard of zombies and at the same time collect as many goods from the local mall as possible. Great fun for the whole family.

Nuclear War, followed by its expanions Nuclear Escalation, and Nuclear Proliferation is hands down the best novelty card game I’ve ever played. This is not a collectable card game so when you buy the boxed set you know you’ve got enough cards for all your friends to play. The premise is this, each player is actually a country and you use propaganda, nuclear arms, and secrets in order to whittle your enemy’s population to 0. The game is humorous and my favorite Top Secret card is the Super Virus that kills 25,000,000 of the enemies population. A fun game produced by the fine folks and Buffalo Games. I’d check it out if I were you.

That is all for now.

Marc

This site has the funniest version of a Lord of the Rings board game that I have ever seen. I am desparate to try and play it with some friends, but no-one will take me seriously.

At home we play a home grown card game known as dwala which has elements of Uno, Gravelsucker, Snap and Blind man’s bluff. Ends up with cards being played blind in order to win…

Gp

Games I like are
Scotland Yard a great chase game which has one player verses up to five others working together to catch him.
Wiz War THER IS NO PEEING IN THIS GAME! Up to 4 wizards compete to either steal each other treasures or kill each other.

The All My Children board game. It is stupid and yet the most fun my freinds and I have ever had. You’ll understand when you see a full grown male drop a card announcing he is “going to ruin Monica’s hair before the big party”, so he can win the game. Having a male character hide their secret pregnancy was another hoot.

YES!

Listen to him, folks: Nuclear War is simply the best card game ever produced. It’s easy to learn, quick to play, works with a good-sized crowd, encourages petty revenge and shameless boasting, and the game usually ends with the players nuking each other out of existence – an apt metaphor for a real-life nuclear war. I literally passed my free time in college playing this game with the other guys at the student dorm, and I plan to teach it to my wife and kids someday.

My only suggestion is to limit the game to Nuclear War and Nuclear EscalationProliferation muddles the clean simplicity of the game, and the new card artwork doesn’t mesh with the originals. I own all three sets, but will probably separate out the Proliferation cards sometime soon. I’m also not sure about the availability of the game, since I thought Flying Buffalo went out of business a few years back…?

“EVENT – Your Enemy makes a boring speech and drives 10 MILLION of his own people to your country!”

Voice of the Mummy was an Excellent game! It talked to you when you landed on a mummy space.

Prize Property was also excellent. You were a land developer and you won by building all your buildings first

Jet World - A game where you owned airlines. I don’t remember a whole lot about this game since it’s been a loooong time since I played it, but I remember it was fun.

The Farming Game

It’s like Monopoly, but with a farm, not real estate. You go around, buying equipment, cows, seeds, etc…Then try to sell them in harvest time to make a profit.

A subject dear to my heart…

Most of what my friends and I have been playing lately have been from Cheapass Games. They include:

Before I Kill You, Mr. Bond (Trap the darn spy, then explain your whole plan while he escapes)

Deadwood (You play a hack movie actor on a bad movie lot, trying to make a buck)

Get Out (You play a guy living in his parents’ basement, trying to get a job and save enough money to get his own place, while racing your friends to do just that. Seriously.)

Unexploded Cow (You’ve got Mad Cow Disease. You’ve got Unexploded Bombs. Hmm… how to combine the two so as to make a profit…)

The Devil Bunny Series:

Devil Bunny Needs a Ham
Devil Bunny Hates the Earth

Lord of the Fries (Zombie fast-food workers compete for fun and prizes)

Etcetera. Check them out. They’re fun. They’re cheap.

But the one game that comes back to haunt us the most is 10,000, also known as just “Dice”.

http://www.gamecabinet.com/rules/TenThousand.html

We play by an odd set of rules.

Five dice. You can stop rolling at any time, and keep the score you have for that turn, but if at any point you roll, and don’t score, you lose the score that you’ve rolled so far that turn.

1’s are worth 100
5’s are worth 50
Three of a kind is worth 100x the dice face value (triple 4’s is worth 400, for instance) but 3 ones is worth 1000.
If you score on all five dice, you must roll all the dice again.

So, for example. You get the dice. You roll. You get a one, a five, two fours, a six, and a two. You can keep the one, for 100 points, and reroll the other four dice. You can keep the one and the five, for 150 points, and reroll three dice. Or you can just keep the 150 points, and pass the dice to the next player. If you reroll dice, and you don’t score anything, your total for that turn is 0, and play passes to the next player.

The goal is 10,000 points.

Simple? Yup.

Except that when you roll three 2’s, you get 200 points, and you get to make a rule.

The rule must be tied to the roll of the dice, and must apply to all players equally.

You can also reset the goal; instead of 10,000 points to win, it could be 1,000,000. Or -1. Or Paraguay.

It gets to be really fun.

Oh, and we also play Talisman a lot.

Oh oh oh! Games! Yay!

There is a strange game my mother played with me while growing up. Whenever it happened (Perhaps four or five times in my life) it was a wonderous event. Whole years were spent waiting in anticipation for The Game.

A circle of five or so people gathers around. In the center of the circle is a baking sheet covered in unwrapped chocolate bars. No fancy things like Snickers, just plain old chocolate. Also needed are a ski cap, mittens (on the large side), a scarf, a pair of forks and pair of dice.

The pair of dice is passed around the circle. Each person rolling them once. When someone gets a double, he or she has to put on the cap, mittens and scarf, and procedes to use the forks to eat as much chocolate is possible. Meanwhile, the dice continue around the circle. When someone else rolls doubles, that person gets the winter apperel and forks, so that they can eat chocolate. The game continues until either all the chocolate is gone, or someone gets sick.

I havn’t played that since I was a kid. Going out to the grocery store and buying chocolate just wouldn’t have the same magic. I still play a lot of games, though. My friends and I are board game fanatics.

Settlers is one of our favorite games. We like it because the changing board (you construct the layout of the “island” from randomly places hexagonal tiles) means that strategy is different every time. We don’t have any of the expansions, but occasionally we will put two boards together and play a “peanut board” game. We never use the theif (a piece that allows you to take other players cards and hinder their collection of resources) because it causes too many hostilities.

We also play Mushroom Hunt, a game I know you havn’t heard of because we made it up. After hearing about the intrigue that revolves around mushroom hunting, we made it in to a game. The goal is to make enough money to retire to Florida. You run around the board, collecting mushrooms (which are represented with accurate drawings) and selling them at a central market. Selling Halicinagenic mushrooms can lead to a lot of cash or a one in six chance that you will be caught by the cops and executed. Dead people respawn, without their mushrooms or money. In order to move, you also need to eat mushrooms to gain energy. When selling or eating, you choose randomly from your stash, and eating a poisenout mushroom will kill you. Finally, there are mushroom wars, in which you challege someone ajecent to you to a dual to the death. Each of you rolls, and whoever rolls lowest takes the amount of the high roll of their life points. This continues until someone dies. The victor takes the losers mushrooms, but not money because that is stealing a stealing is wrong. The game continues until someone makes a preset amount of money, usually two hundred dollars.

We mass produced many copies, on nice cardstock and struff, and gave them to our friends. It has been quite a hit with them.

Another thing we will do is play silly kids games in a serious manner. “Mafia” is one of our favorites. In “Mafia” you get a deck of cards that have a queen, king, and seven of spades. You flush out the deck with random cards for the rest of the players (this game works best with seven or more people). Each player takes a card. The two players with the face cards are the “Mafia”. Their goal is to kill off all the rest of the player (“Villagers”) without getting identified. The seven of spades is the “Stool Pidgeon”. After everyone knows their roles, they all close their eyes and stomp their feet to cover up ambiant sounds. The Stool Pidgeon opens their eyes while the two Mafia members raise their hands. The Stool Pidgeon now knows who the Mafia is, but the Mafia does not know who the Stool Pidgeon is. The Stool Pidgeons goal is to lead the townsmembers to kill the Mafia, but not reveal that they are the stool pidgeon because that would lead to their instant elimination.

Then gameplay begins. The Villagers make the first hit. They argue amongst themselves (with little evidence at this point) as to who the Mafia might be. They eventually vote to accuse one person. This person is out of the gameplay (He or she is allowed to watch everything, but not to speak about who might be Mafia, Stool Pidgeon, etc. The first victem also acts as an “MC” for the rest of the game.

The next round is the Mafias. The MC tells everyone to close their eyes and stomp their feet. While everyones eyes are closed, the mafia members (or member, if one was eliminated in the first round) point at a person to kill. The MC sees this, and tell everyone to open their eyes. The MC then informs everyone as to who was eliminated. Then the Villagers have another round, accuse another person, and then the mafia kills another person, etc. etc.

Gameplay ends when the villagers have either accurately accused both mafia members, or there are three people left. If there are only three people left, then whichever side has two people left standing wins.

It is a silly kids game, but it can be lots of fun. We had one game last for hours, as we analyzed every move and every word said in the game. It uses logic, psychology and reasoning skills to play it well.

Settlers of Cataan has actually been out quite some time, not 4 years.

These days, other than the standard RPG’s, I play

Fluxx Simple card game, where the rules and goals of the game change with every play of a card.

Lord of the Fries as Mr.Visable said.
The great Brain Robbery The players are zombies trying to rob a train carrying many of the great minds of history…and loads of goverment cheese. Try to have the most valuable brain when the train stops.

xXxenophile: The card game Rated R, the strategic aspects of it make for a fun game (Was created by James Ernest of Cheapass games). Plus the art is a bonus.
Girl Genius: The Works Rated PG derivative of xXxenophile in terms of game play, the art however is from the comic series.

Ricochet Robots is an excellent brain-intensive game. Essentially, there is a maze and robots on it; when a robot is started in a direction, it keeps moving till it hits a wall or another bot, where it will either ricochet off at a 90 degree angle, or stop. If it stops by hitting another robot, that robot begins moving; the goal is to get a robot to stop on certain areas of the board (determined randomly in the game), in the fewest possible number of moves. My friends very seldom play it, though, as it does hurt the brain, and it’s an intensely silent game.

In the lighter, low mental impact area, Cheap-Ass makes good stuff. Deadwood is among my favorites, especially with the expansion packs.

I when I was little my sisters, my neighbors and I used to play this game called Public Assistance. It was basically about economics and trying to live on a set budget. I bet it was funny to see a bunch of eight year olds playing and economics game.

Since we have two Jane Juniors at home, we rarely go out. When we have friends over, since we’re party animals, we like to play games. I like Zobmondo, which is an adult game where players are forced to choose the lesser of two gross/disturbing/unpleasant choices. We’ve gone through all the cards now, so I’m waiting for a sequel.

I’m partial to plain old Monopoly even though I never (I mean NEVER) win. For some reason, all the guys in our group of friends have resurrected Risk. Blech. However, I’ve found The Game of Life is incredibly fun if you pour enough beer on it.

There was this board game I played in HS where a group of players playing cops chase a criminal through the streets of London. The thing is that the criminal has limited fares to take by taxi, bus, ferry or Underground. Every five turns the criminal reveals where he is, a la The Running Man. What was that name of that game, I forget.

RoboRally. It was created by Richard Garfield before Magic: The Gathering, and seems to have suffered from the fact that it didn’t have a built-in way to make Wizards of the Coast a whole pile of money. IMHO, it’s a better, and less finacially ruinous, game.

Basically, the idea is that each player gets a little robot figure and they race to a sequence of goals placed on any of several boards. Each player gets dealt a few cards with moves to program their robot with. Six moves are programmed at a time, with the cards layed out upside down. Then each is turned over in sequence, revealing the move for each robot. Due to the other robots, each player can’t necessarily predict where their robot will end up.

The boards also have a variety of features, such as lasers, crushers, pits, and different types of conveyor belts. And they can shoot each other. As a robot suffers more damage, the number of cards that player gets dealt decreases.

It’s a lot of fun, even if I always get dealt cards that leave me with no choice but to fall in a pit. grumble grumble

Capacitor, what you refer to is the inestimable Scotland Yard, an amazing board game that my group of friends in college also got addicted to. Great game. Zebra referred to it earlier in the thread.

Axis vs. Allies -
A board game much like Risk in which you play as one (or more) of the five major countries involved in WWII after 1942, US-Britan-Russia-Germany-Japan. This game rocks whenever you can get your friends to play it. Drawbacks? - Takes bloody well forever to set up.

Obviously you never played GDW’s Fire in the East / Scorched Earth (the first one is the Russian front up to Spring 1942, the second one is an expansion covering this front until December 1944). Thousands of units, 16 miles to the hex, 2 weeks turn, the basic unit size is the division, but you have units that can go down to the company level. Covers the air, land and inadequately, the sea war. Partisans, production and weather are taken into effect. It takes forever to set up and play, but when you’re finished, you have a new understanding of WWII. Worth every hour spent on it.