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

In My Humble Opinion
21

The board games I enjoy are:

Settlers of Cataan, both the board and card versions.

Robo-Rally.

Talisman. A great out-of-print game. Unfortunately the ending kind of sucks, but the game itself is a hoot.

Dungeonquest. Also out-of-print. You build the dungeon as you go along in an attempt to loot treasure from the sleeping dragon. But you have a time limit. This game is lethal, too.

Illuminati - the original Steve Jackson card game.

Hacker - Also by Steve Jackson Games.

And a shout out for two old favorites. Someone mentioned Voice of the Mummy and oh my god I remember that game. It was amazing. I have often been tempted to get one off of eBay but they’re so expensive and usually odn’t work.

Also, props to Dark Tower, another older electronic game.

22

I play so many of these right now with some friends . . .

Settlers of Cataan–we also play Seafarers, a variation called Explorers (the board is put together upside down, so you don’t know what you’ll find until you get to an intersection with an unflipped tile), and the newly released Starfarers of Cataan, which only allows 4 players.

Nuclear War, Escalation, Proliferation–one of our favourite questions is “Do you have change for 20 million people?” And, of course, there is the obligatory chant of “Final Strike! Final Strike!”

Talisman–I just got all the expansions (except for Dragon King, or whatever it is) off e-Bay. Expensive but worth it.

Fluxx–needs at least 3 people to be any real fun, but it’s a lot of fun.

Cheap Ass Games–Kill Dr. Lucky! one of our favourites. I think there’s a sequel to it, but I forget the name.

Maul of America–we haven’t managed to win once against the Zombie Master. sigh

Arkham Horror–a fun boardgame where you’re an investigator trying to close all the interdimensional gates before the doom counter reaches 13.

Dungeon Quest–Snotlings! But it can be a very frustrating game since, if it takes too long to get to the center, you won’t make it out alive.

Tales of the Arabian Knights–another fun game, but it can be tricky keeping track of all your choices

Guillotine–collect the heads of the french aristocracy

and many, many more . . .

23

Netrunner- Card game created by Richard Garfield. Two different decks play against each other, one is corp, and the other is the runner. Really cool game, came out with one expansion. Re-released in the past few years, still never hit very big, but still a good game.
Tales From The Floating Vagabond- Avalon Games, now defunct. A twist on roleplaying, you were in a flying bar, and the ‘gamemaster’ was a Bartender. Nice break game in between runs from playing D&D.

24

Grass® - The card game. I bought my set in a head shop. It revolves around smoking marijuana and trying to evade the police. Here it is on EBay.

Pig Mania® - Here’s one on EBay. I bought mine in the early eighties. It comes with two pig figurines and points awarded are based on the positions in which the pigs land when rolled. Much like Yahtzee®.

25

Woo hoo, a games thread!

I’m also a big Settlers of Cataan fan, but it probably doesn’t count as a “game no one has heard of.”

My choice for that is a German board game by Frank & Doris called Ursuppe (which I think means “Primordial Soup” in German.)

Each player controls a colony of amoebas, floating around the board trying to stay alive by eating. The game-board is covered with different colored “food pellets,” and each aboeba has to eat a food pellet of each of the other players’ colors. (Then it poops out two food pellets of its own color.) If an amoeba can’t eat, it starves, and if it starves twice in a row, it’s removed from the board.

The real genius of this game is the Genes. Each round you can buy genetic improvements to your amoebas, that help them stay alive longer. These genes let you:

  • have better control your amoebas’ movement around the board (it’s pseudo-random by default)
  • bring food pellets with you as you move from square to square
  • require fewer food pellets to survive
  • eat other amoebas if you’d otherwise starve (!)
  • escape from amoebas with the gene just mentioned
  • survive until they’ve starved three times instead of twice

…and there are a whole bunch more.

Because there are so many combinations of genes, and because genes that are useful at one point in the game may be less good at other points, this game has a ** lot ** of replay value.

-Fezzik

26

10,000 sounds like Cosmic Wimpout with a few modifications. I learned that game in 5th grade and bought a home playing set when I found one years later. Still have it around, too!

The one game I’ve heard about (and seen scoresheets for) is Zonk, a game apparently involving substances of a questionable legal nature. Nobody ever told me how to play it!

I still have my game of Supremacy around somewhere; I only played it once with one other friend of mine and we got bored real quick. Maybe I should put it up on eBay or something.

What Valkyrie and I are really into is 2-player card games. (The Tzeroling is still a little young to get her head around the rules.) Our favorites are cribbage, casino, and a Russian kids’ game called durak. Loads o’ fun!

27

MGibson - Babylon 5 Wars rocks! One of the very few space games that takes physics even a little bit seriously.

I also second MrVisible on Before I Kill You, Mr. Bond, a very funny game.

A favorite of mine that no one has mentioned: Megiddo, an abstract game similar to Pente. The object is to place six stones in a line, circle, or spiral pattern, and prevent the opponent from doing so. Megiddo is proven to give me vertigo.

28

I too thought “Settlers” was this great game that no one had heard of - obviously not. Grrr. Kinda like when your hometown band that you used to go see at the Mineshaft suddenly goes triple platinum. There’s something inherantly selfish about wanting to keep good things all to ourselves, but I have to admit to that particular weakness.

I’ll put in a vote for a game called “Titan.” It’s played on a hexagonal board with maybe ten types of terrain (some more common than others). You start with fairly weak creatures, but can recruit more and bigger creatures with the right combination of predecessor creatures in the right terrain. You can also spin off groups into two smaller groups that can each grow on their own.

The players can also attack each other’s creature groups. Often to get the really good creatures you have to choose weaker predecessors, so you kind of have to choose between maximizing short term power or long term growth. It’s a great game.

29

I got into single-player games when the last of my siblings left for college. Ambush! was my first games designed for one player, followed by Battle Hymn. Both are from Victory Games. Avalon Hill’s Blackbeard has a single-player option but was designed for up to four players. There was a computer version in the works but the project was abandoned. There’s also a card game similar to Car Wars which I’d like to try: Road Wars. I have the game but never really did anything with it.

30

I used to love playing Family Business. It’s a card game that allows up to 6 players. Each player has a gang of mobsters. The object of the game is to be the last person with living mobsters. You lose mobsters when they either go to jail or are killed by your opponents.

With a card like St. Valentine’s Day Massacre that allows you to wipe out a whole bunch of your opponents cards at once, how can you go wrong?

31

Except now that I’ve moved to Akransas I don’t have anyone to play with. :frowning:

Marc

32

I have greatly impressed my nephews with Cosmic Wimpout. I also have played Dune, the board game, and Cosmic Encounters. LOTS of fun, wish I could get a group of people together again to play those games. I’ve still got an old copy of Waterworks, too.

33

The Farming Game.
Board game that could last for days before anyone actually managed to make a profit on their farm. Much less win the game. Perfect for summer.

34

Lynn, if I ever find out you and I are attending the same Dopefest, I’m bringin’ my board. I haven’t had a game in ages! :smiley:

35

We play this game, but the folks who taught it to us called it “Farkle”.

36

Any of the Avalon Hill Games (especially Battle of the Bulge).

There was also a game called (I Think) Twixt which was one of those “connect a path across the board before your opponent does” games.

Abalone is an interesting strategy game.

My favorite card games are Mille Bornes and Pit. Pit is great with 5 or 6 drunk people!

Phouchg
Lovable Rogue

37

We’ve been playing this for 7 or 8 years as Pass the Pigs.

We play a few of the games mentioned in previous posts. The only one we play regularly that I don’t see mentioned is a card game called “Golf”. In golf, each player is dealt six cards laid out in three rows of two. The first row the cards are face up, the second two rows are face down. There is a draw pile and a discard pile, the object is to keep your “points” as low as possible. Jokers are 50, face cards are 10, ace is 1, 2 through 9 are 2 through 9 points respectively. Each player draws or picks up from the discard pile and tries to get the lowest point value possible on all six cards. If two cards in the same row across are the same, they cancel each other out with a zero point value. You can change the cards on the first row as many times as you want, until you start on the other two rows, then the face up row must remain static and whatever you replace the face down cards with must stay. The catch is that when one person turns all six cards over that hand is done. If you haven’t turned over all your cards, you may have a joker hiding under there.

Anyone else heard of this one?

38

This a fun, non-standard, game to play with a standard deck (or two). Being non-standard, I’ve had objections from people who prefer standard games. The game is best for two, but I’ve played with three or four. For three, one might want a second deck; a second-deck is definately needed for a fourth. Play is as follows:

The Deal
Turn over the top card and give to the first player. This is how many cards that player will get this hand (two for a 2, three for a 3…ten for a 10 or face card, 15 for an ace or joker). Including the face up card, deal the proper number of cards to that player. Repeat for all other players. The last card in the dealer’s hand is also turned face up; this is the wild card for this hand, in addition to the joker(s). If the last card is a joker, turn up the next to last.

Playing the Game
Just like standard rummy execpt for the wild cards. When a wild card is played, it should not be moved to represent a different card. “Floating” is allowed.

Scoring
250 for jokers, minimum. (Option: before the game, specify “special” jokers to be worth more.)
100 for aces and whatever is wild that hand. (Option: if aces are wild, they’re worth 200.)
10 for face cards and the 10.
5 for everything else.
When a player has cards left after another goes out, those points aren’t deducted. Instead, they go to the player who went out.

39

Have you picked up Axis and Allies: Europe and Axis and Allies: Pacific yet? Both are great - much more detailed than the original.

40

Well many of my favorties have been mentioned so I guess they have been heard about.

The one me and my friends have been playing lately is the most recent History of the World by Avalon Hill/Hasbro. With the changes that have been made this game has become faster and more fun than the previous versions. There si nothing quite like conquering half the world with the Romans only to lose it a turn later to the Arabs. Highly recomended.

Others that have already been mentioned

Settlers of Catan. We play with the Cities and Knights expansion. This is probably the most played game in my closet. Others are more popular in streaks. But year in year out this gets pulled out and played over and over again.

Nuclear War etc. Possibly the most entertaining card game of all time. Nothing like a game that no one ever wins.
And they only game I have that works well with 18 people.

Anything from Cheapass Games. My personal favorite is Kill Doctor Lucky. But for only a couple of bucks it is hard to go wrong with any of them.

Robo Rally. Everyone I have ever played this game with bought a copy for themselves. Including all my non-gaming brothers. Too bad it is out of print.

The new Avalon Hill titles. Axis & Allis: Europe, Pacific, Cosmic Encounter, Battle Cry, Acquire and Diplomacy. Most of these are remakes or rehashes of older games. The production values are very high though. With the quality pieces and gorgeous boards, I love them.

And my favorite game I never get to play? Advanced Third Reich. With a letter sized, 8point font 120 page rule book (plus seperate 80page appendicies). A corp level simulation of the European theatre in WWII, it is the most complex game I have. Recomended playing time is 48 to 72 hours. All in all truely a different experiance.