Your Favorite Board Games

In My Humble Opinion
1

Okay, my girlfriend and I have been staying in, and saving money by not blowing a fortune on expensive expenditures. Mostly, we’ve rented movies, but that gets boring. To entertain ourselves, we’ve turned to board games. We really enjoy them, and are always looking for a new one. But to get a new game at Target or somesuch, its pretty spendy - along the lines of $25-45!

I know that garage sale season is coming up, and I’ve certainly been known to find a bargain or two at a thrift shop. So I’m asking the dopers to share their favorite board games, so that I might keep an eye out for our new favorite pasttime. We really enjoy the classics, and games that have high replayability.

To spur things along, our current favorites are:

Backgammon
Dominoes
Acquire (a wonderful “Bookshelf” game created by 3M. You can find a bunch on eBay, and its well worth it. This was a family possession.)
Trivial Pursuit (but gets boring with 2 people)
Scrabble

Right now, I’m looking for Twixt (another 3M game), and a good version of Go.

2

Chess (classic, cheap, wide range of abilities)

1830 (railway game, 2-6 players, no dice)

3

Hmm… board games. Personally, I’m a cards man- I’m of the opinion that I could entertain myself and my friends forever with a deck of cards and a decent player’s guide to card games. However, there are a few board games I really like. My current favorite (for at least 3-4 years running) is Axis and Allies, the single most complicated board game known to mankind. Heck, this game takes longer to set up than most do to play. I’ve played A&A games that started at 9 or 10 in the evening, and weren’t finished when the sun came up the next morning. Basically, 2-5 players re-fight World War II, generally with mad interesting results. I have a bunch of other board games I like, though. Sorry is good, but makes me feel like I’m 8 whenever I play it. Monopoly can be fun, but only when 3 or more players make it their mission-from-Gawd to screw every other player. Plus it helps to have an active trading market. Finally, the funniest game I’ve ever played was something along the lines of Wine-something Taster, maybe. It’s some cheapo board game made in the '70s, where the players take turns travelling around a board shaped like a bunch of grapes trying to collect vintage wines. When I played it, it just screamed “drinking game”. Go figure.
M.

4

I do so love these trips down memory lane. Sadly, much like trivial pursuit some of the funnest games just dont work as well with just 2 people. Risk has always been one of my favorite games. It can be played with 2 people, but it loses something, I think.

An aside…perhaps someone can help. I would love to find these two games again. When I was a kid (we are talking about 10 years old, 1976 or so) my father, my sister, and I used to play this game called King Oil. The playing board consisted of a big thick base which was supposed to represent oil country, and it was lined out into parcels of land. Each piece of land had a hole in it. You would buy the land, and hope there was oil on it. The base was thick because it had these concentric circles inside it that you would spin randomly, and it would determine the depth of the holes in each individual property. There was a little plastic oilwell (picture a tire pressure gauge here) and you would place one end into the hole. The movable center of the oil well would move up a little, a lot, or not at all depending on how the holes in the plastic circles matched up. Great game. Would love to find it again.

Second game was some sort of King Tut Egyptian pharoah game. I cannot remember the name. But it was also a very thick playing board. You would travel around the board and up the pyramid, collecting rubies, or some such thing, until you reached the mummy at the top. It had batteries, sound effects and all that fun stuff.
Anyone else remember either of these games?

Siren

5

Pente is a good strategy game of the “easy to learn, tough to master”. It’s a simplified version of GO for people who don’t want to spend years to become a merely adequate player.

And put me down as another “Risk” fan, though this game is best with 3 or four players.

But I don’t think you can really beat “Scrabble” as a two person board game.

But my best suggestion is go to your nearest TOYS R US and look at the game isle. They have thousands of games. Look them over, and get one that strikes your fancy.

6

Oh, we have lots of favorite games around here!

Rummikub is basically a rummy game played with tiles. This has been a camping favorite in my family for years, and, when our friends from Finland came to visit, they loved it, too and bought a copy to take home with them.

Sequence is my mother-in-law’s favorite board game. I think it’s because it relies more on chance than skill. :wink: It’s not as much fun for two…it’s more fun to play in teams. You play a card and cover up that card’s picture on the board with your colored chip. The object of the game is to get five chips in a row (a “sequence”). A good game for when friends come over that doesn’t require too much thought.

UpWords is like Scrabble, except that you can stack up the letters and change words that have already been played. (Also, “Q” comes with its own “U” on the tile.) The strategy is a bit different than Scrabble…you certainly don’t need the huge vocabulary Scrabble seems to require. I have the “small board” version of this game…apparently, if you buy a new one today, it comes with a larger board.

Boggle and Yahtzee are fun, too. If you want to save money, use your own dice and buy the Yahtzee “refill packs”.

Hero Quest is a game for people who like Dungeons and Dragons and other games in the “fantasy” genre. It’s not so great for just two players, but if you are into fantasy and you see this at a thrift shop or garage sale (it’s not made anymore), snap it up! It’s sort of like D&D except that there is a board and little pieces you can move around. One person gets to be “Zargon the Evil Wizard”, and the others get to be adventurers (choose from Barbarian, Wizard, Dwarf, and Elf.) Zargon gets to set up the quest the way it is detailed in the book, put all the pieces on the board, read the descriptions, run all the monsters, and try to stop the adventurers. The adventurers get to explore the dungeon, kill all the monsters, complete the quest, and (if their character survived), go on to the next quest. There are twelve quests in the box. After that, you can make your own or try to bid on the quite-rare expansion packs on eBay.

We also have a few favorite card games:

Fluxx is the ultimate chaos game. You start with one rule: Draw one card and play one card. The cards you play change the rules–if you play “Draw two cards”, then the rule of the game becomes “Draw two cards and play one card.” Some of the cards are keepers (for example, “Milk”, or “Chocolate”) and some of the cards are goals (“Chocolate Milk”). If you complete the goal in play at that time, you win. This game is utterly unpredictable. If your local game store doesn’t have it, (or if you want more info) try http://www.LooneyLabs.com.

Chrononauts is one step up from Fluxx–you aren’t just manipulating rules, you are manipulating time itself. Have you ever wanted to stop JFK’s assassination, keep the Titanic from sinking, assassinate Hitler, or start World War III? You can in this game. It’s made by the same people who created Fluxx, so if you can’t find it, check the URL above. How else can you get all of your friends to start chanting “Kill Hitler! Kill Hitler! Kill Hitler!”?

Euchre and Cribbage–regular old card games. My husband and I play Euchre in fast-food restaurants while our kid is climbing around inside the playland area.

We also play the collectable card games Magic: the Gathering and Pokemon, but, if you are trying to save money, stay away from those :). If you really get into them, you tend to want to keep buying new cards.

7

Cheapass games.

Seriously. Cheapass Games.

A game company that recognizes that you already have dice, and pawns, and just want a fun new game, for cheap.

Devil Bunny Needs A Ham is awesome, though I haven’t tried the sequel, Devil Bunny Hates The Earth.

Deadwood is a classic, and hysterically funny. If you order it, get the booster packs as well. You play a hack actor on a back lot looking for work. Great gameplay, and the movie titles will have you rolling.

And Escape from Elba… “You’re Napoleon, and so is everybody else.”

Check them out, they’re amazing.

8

Another great two person game is Othello. Simple to learn, but complex enough to keep it fun. Ones that you may find at a garage sale are Mastermind and Battleship–which has several versions, including electronic, but I still like the old plastic model.

Chinese Checkers, Sorry, Aggravation and The Game of Life all work best with more than two players, but can be played by two, and again, they are games you may well find at garage sales.

With cards, Gin Rummy and its various incarnations can make any evening fly by. Man, I miss having somebody to play with!!

Yeah, quit your giggling. I meant I miss having someone to play games with–and your evil little mind can do what it will with that!

9

My favorite board game genre was military simulations. Panzer Blitz, Squad Leader, NATO77, Oil War, Afrika Corps, Stalingrad, etc. The complexity of these games is unbelievable, especially the top end games like Squad Leader. I remember times when we’d spend about an hour debating the rules governing each turn that was equvalent to 15 seconds of real time.
Of course, these games are not really worth playing anymore when computer war sims are available. The computer can handle all the complex rules, leaving the humans time to enjoy the gameplaying instead of spending all their time arbitrating.
I remember one particular marathon game of NATO77 where I played against an ex-marine lieutenant. We played for 18 hours straight, and when I finished whopping his ass, I stood up and my pants fell down! Now I understood Bobby Fischer’s claim that he loses 15 pounds during an typical chess match.

Oh, and BTW, I’m a total pacifist, but I figure you have to know the enemy. And the enemy is war.

10

I second Othello, which, by the way, is the trademarked game. The generic version is Reversi. If one of you is much better than the other, there’s a couple of ways to handicap. For example, the weaker player can start off with one or more corner squares, or the weaker player can take two turns in a row (once or more per game).

Instead of starting the game with this in the middle:

XO
OX

Try:

XO
XO

You should be able to pick this up fairly cheaply, and it has been put out in travel size games as well.

11

Um… HELLO! Snakes/Shutes and Ladders depending on which one you played.

12

I’m with ChasE here. I remember when I was a young teen, I subscribed to a publication called Stragegy & Tactics that came out every two months and included a counter based wargame with each issue. I can still remember the pleasure I would get every time an issue arrived, the next month would be consumed with learning the rules, strategy and variations. Typical of a 14yo I would mainly play with myself. Today I still have all the games neatly packed and stored in England, I couldn’t imagine throwing them away.

In my early twenties I lived in Ireland, sharing a house with five others over from England. We would spend 5 nights a week and most of the weekends playing a board game, called Axis and Allies, a wargame based upon WW2 with each player controlling either USA, Britain, Germany, Russia or Japan. Just when a player thought he had a winning strategy, another of us would find a way around it. I haven’t met a game that comes anywhere near as close for longevity. I was under the impression that this game was no longer produced, until a couple of years back when I picked one up in Australia (haven’t found any playing partners yet though, curse the damn PC).

13

I think Risk is one board game which is improves greatly on the computer. Some don’t – chess isn’t all that much better on the computer, and Scrabble even seems a little more ponderous that way. But Risk on the computer keeps the time down to a manageable level.

I think Stratego is pretty neato.

14

I had that game when I was a kid too, sometime in the late '70s or early '80s. It was a cool concept.

15

I was just rereading the OP, I suppose I should suggest some simpler games for the guy and his girlfriend that don’t involve guns and artillery.

For a simple game that anyone can play, try Boggle. Boggle is even my all-time favorite computer game, it’s part of the BSD-Games package. We used to play 5 people vs the computer and the computer still beat us every time.

I also recommend Go. But it’s harder than Chess.

16

Mille Bornes is a real classic. It’s this french card game about driving. You could probably pick it up from Amazon for about 10. I love that game man. I also loved Canasta but I suffer the same fate as Kallessa. Woe is me.

This reminds me of one of my favorite songs.

"I’ve got a 12 pack of beer and the food’s on its way. A brand new Risk board game and I’m ready to play. You can go first after the pieces have been dispersed. From the Northwest territory to Madagascar you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen by far and I wish you luck on your quest to rule the world. And I can’t help but smile as your army attacks. I bet Napoleon Bonaparte never felt this relaxed. Please don’t get mad if I make up the rules as we go.

There’s so much to risk. There’s so much to lose if you sank my battleship, I’d still look for clues. My pursuits aren’t trival. You’ve got a monopoly on my heart. You can twister around but please don’t tear it apart baby next time, let’s play life.

Well it’s friday night and I can’t help my fascination with the way the light hits your face and world domination as the Ukraine gets attacked from the west. And when the rolling dice stops and our little game ends if your Empire is destroyed can we still be friends? Please take a card I wouldn’t want to cheat you.

There’s so much to risk. There’s so much to lose if you sank my battleship, I’d still look for clues. My pursuits aren’t trival. You’ve got a monopoly on my heart. You can twister around but please don’t tear it apart baby next time, let’s play life.

Checkers? No no no.
Chess? Moves way to slow.
Sorry? Uh, I gotta go.
Scrabble? Can’t get into the flow. flow.

There’s so much to risk. There’s so much to lose if you sank my battleship, I’d still look for clues. My pursuits aren’t trival. You’ve got a monopoly on my heart. You can twister around but please don’t tear it apart baby next time, let’s play life.

And we could fly from the board up to the stars in our little plastic pastel cars. Baby next time let’s play life. And if you accepted my invitation gladly I would thank God for Milton Bradley baby next time let’s play life."

17

backgammon is my favorite game, hands down. And now that I’ve finally found a computer version that can beat me more than half the time (called Jellyfish), I can’t stop playing it. I like a lot of the other games that have already been mentioned, especially Boggle. Some other good ones:

Stocks & Bonds-another one of the Bookshelf Games
Parcheesi-the Milton Bradley version. I’ve never played the traditional game from India that it’s based on (pachisi), but I have the rules somewhere.

18

I’m with Number Six, Pente can be alot of fun. Especially with more than 2 playing. And it lends itself to a strip version with just 2. (Or more if you’re close friends)

Jenga is quick and easy.

Mancala is fun. And should be showing up at a garage sale near you.

Checkers. A classic for a reason.

I was going to mention Clue, but it’s pretty pointless with just 2 people. Same with Monopoly.

TriBond. It can be really easy, or a bite in the butt, depending on the way you think. They give you a list of 3 things, and you have to figure out the connection. Sometimes straighforward, sometimes obscure, sometimes pun based.

19

I love Scrabble. can’t beat it.

A few other of my favorites:
Taboo
Scattergories
Balderdash
Twixt
Cribbage
Uno

And there’s a four-person variant of Reversi/Othello, the name of which I can’t remember at the moment, which is quite challenging – the strategies are completely different to regular Othello. The playing pieces are roughly circular with four colors on them.

20

Dino Hunt, The Awful Green Things From Outer Space, and Junta, all by Steve Jackson Games. In Junta, the players are various factions in a banana republic during a revolution; sadly, it’s out of print. Dino Hunt is sort of the mutant child of a board game and a collectable card game, but you don’t have to buy anything but the basic box to have a good time.

I’m not sure if this counts as a board game per se, but SJG also puts out Knightmare Chess, a set of cards that are an “add-on” to a standard chessboard. They add a completely different level of strategy to the game, and occasionally mutate it wildly…

(Disclosure: I write for, and run demos for, Steve Jackson Games.)

Outside of SJG products, let’s see. When I was much younger, I loved an Avalon Hill game called Mr. President. I also enjoyed a game called Battle of the Networks – which I still have, severely battered and hemorrhaging tokens, but more or less intact. I like Tyranno Ex but I can neither remember its publisher nor get anyone to play it with me.

I also liked Mike Farrell’s (yeah, BJ from MASH*) Broadway Game, put out about ten years ago by the late, semi-lamented TSR, even though it was damnably difficult to move from out-of-town to Broadway… Similarly for a game called The Oldies But Goodies Game, which came with booklets of pop music trivia questions and a tape of “identify this song” snippets. It had a roughly circular track on its board with an ostensible “shortcut” through the middle labelled “Rock and Roll High School”; we ended up calling it the “Rock and Roll Black Hole” because of how many times players were forced into it rather than allowed to progress along the far end of the board.

– Bob