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Forget one specific game. Head to BoardGameGeek and find something cool.

If she studied chemistry, Compounded would be a good start.
If she likes dark tales, Arkham Horror would be good.
San Juan is one of my favorites. It shows you there's about a dozen ways to use a card for a game. It also plays fast.
Try Gulo Gulo for the kids. Get them on board with gaming and she'll have to follow =)

If you can get five people together, The Great Dalmuti is good too. It's easy to understand, plays fast, and is based off a card game known as "Asshole". What more can you ask?

Forget one specific game. Head to BoardGameGeek and find something cool.

If she studied chemistry, Compounded would be a good start.
If she likes dark tales, Arkham Horror would be good.
San Juan is one of my favorites. It shows you there's about a dozen ways to use a card for a game. It also plays fast.
Try Gulo Gulo for the kids. Get them on board with gaming and she'll have to follow =)

If you can get five people together, The Great Dalmuti is good too. It's easy to understand, plays fast, and is based off a card game known as "Asshole". What more can you ask?

Forget one specific game. Head to BoardGameGeek and find something cool.

If she studied chemistry, Compounded would be a good start.
If she likes dark tales, Arkham Horror would be good.
San Juan is one of my favorites. It shows you there's about a dozen ways to use a card for a game. It also plays fast.
Try Gulo Gulo for the kids. Get them on board with gaming and she'll have to follow =)

If you can get five people together, The Great Dalmuti is good too. It's easy to understand, plays fast, and is based off a card game known as "Asshole". What more can you ask?

Forget one specific game. Head to BoardGameGeek and find something cool.

If she studied chemistry, Compounded would be a good start.
If she likes dark tales, Arkham Horror would be good.
San Juan is one of my favorites. It shows you there's about a dozen ways to use a card for a game. It also plays fast.
Try Gulo Gulo for the kids. Get them on board with gaming and she'll have to follow =)

If you can get five people together, The Great Dalmuti is good too. It's easy to understand, plays fast, and is based off a card game known as "Asshole". What more can you ask?

My wife and I are in a similar spot, living temporarily in an area far away from people we know. As such, we've found a few good 2-player board games to occupy us.

Lost Cities is excellent, Odin's Ravens is very good (if slightly childish), and we're just digging into Jaipur now which may be the best yet.

My wife and I are in a similar spot, living temporarily in an area far away from people we know. As such, we've found a few good 2-player board games to occupy us.

Lost Cities is excellent, Odin's Ravens is very good (if slightly childish), and we're just digging into Jaipur now which may be the best yet.

My wife and I are in a similar spot, living temporarily in an area far away from people we know. As such, we've found a few good 2-player board games to occupy us.

Lost Cities is excellent, Odin's Ravens is very good (if slightly childish), and we're just digging into Jaipur now which may be the best yet.

For those of us who have played Illuminati, http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28/illuminati-deluxe-edition what we are seeing here is a further attempt by certain powers to destroy the visible power group 'News Corp'. The attack has been declared; we're now seeing the money being spent before the dice is rolled. We've already seen one successful attack to destroy - the News of the World newspaper in the UK. Will this attack be successful - or it might merely be to neutralise, leaving News Corp in play to be taken over...

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/83468/global-warming

First published in today's form by Ravensburger in February 1959.. There are hundreds of different Memory games - starting with 24 cards for the youngest.. The most famous publisher is Ravensburger - they have the rights for the brand name Memory - and they have really nice ones.

I still feel that banning the use of "memory" in a keyword is ridiculous.

Little leaning rare earth magnets designed to look like othello pieces (but can appear like oreos to really REALLY stupid kids), chokeable if placed in the mouth, JUST LIKE A LEGO!

It's a pretty good game, though: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/380/polarity

You just gave another idea to those mad scientists out here that want to create a master race. Instead of diseases they`ll use meteors!

That is actually one of the possibilities in this game.

RoboRally, if you can get it!

Richard Garfield, creator of Magic the Gathering, didn't win awards for it for nothing.

Race your robot against your opponents to get to the goal first. Program your robot figurine for each round selecting and ordering basic movement cards (forward, forward x2, backwards, turn left, right, u-turn) using a larger set. If you are damaged, your set of cards to choose from reduces until your registers you've programmed lock into place. Teaches how to think ahead and very basic programming skills. My five-year-old has been slowly learning how to play by laying out cards in order and having me beep-boop the robot into horrible predicaments he programs out. After two games, he seems to have gotten the hang of it and is able to guide the bot to the goal without falling into pits. Soon he will be up against me and my lasers; then he'll know true pain.

Really? You've seen other board games built around the syntax of some computer language? Please tell me about them! I'd love to play them. I had thought this game was innovative and interesting, but if there's a whole collection of similar board games, I'd love to get into them. Didn't find anything on boardgamegeek.com.

True (to my knowledge anyway), few boardgames use the syntax of computer languages, but there are many board games that use programming as a core mechanic in the game. The game of Rambots comes to mind as an example.

Perhaps games using computer languages are more suited to computers in the first place? In that case, I can point to The Schemaverse based on SQL, and Code Hero based on Javascript.

If they really want to reduce the amount of offensive postings, they would moderate their forums. I find that the sites with human-moderated forums are very much clean of the drivel you usually see on other sites. Granted, human moderation brings its own set of issues, such as the prejudices of the moderator, but the results are plain to see. Just compare a human moderated site, such as boargamegeek to an unmoderated one, such as IMDB , or Yahoo News.

I guess I'm just out of it. When I was a boy I'd go to Toys R Us and see an entire aisle of board games, for all ages. Everybody had a closet full, and everybody played them with their family and friends.

Am I to understand that this behavior is not actually mainstream? Monopoly, Risk, Parcheesi, these aren't mainstream? Or is there some class of board games here that are not mainstream? I'll admit not everyone knows about Settlers of Catan and such.

The games you quote are mainstream board games, by big name companies (i.e., Hasbro). Even stuff like Magic the Gathering is by Hasbro in the end.

But there's a LOT more games that aren't in the mainstream by smaller publishers. I found a nice little haven for these at a local mall. (Craving for a Game, if you're in Western Canada - the owner's VERY friendly and he runs the entire thing. Just a satisified customer). There's probably around 5000-odd games there, including interminable varieties of Monopoly, but many more by smaller publishers like Rio Grande and Fantasy Flight.

Heck, one of the most fun things was gathering up a few coworkers and playing Seven Seals (Zing in English, but the translation is Seven Seals). It's a neat trick-taking card game similar to Spades (the best description is "spades with evil"). The trick is to decide when to take the trick, when to make someone else take it (and sandbag them, costing them points), and when to trump it out (thus not making the bid). Many strategies to the game, including self-sacrificial ones (the bids you can place are limited to tokens available, so having people take ALL the tokens is a valid maneuver).

Helps blow of steam and much fun to be had. Plus it plays quick enough for a lunch break.

Have you been here:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/

Might give you some other ideas for good games that are out there if you're looking to do more of this.

Best of luck,
jeff

It probably won't be like this
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2192/rivets

I was actually thinking solitaire 3D or Suduko 3D. Just imagine how it would improve your gameplay. ;)

I could go for *actual* 3D chess: I have an old board game of such from - I think - the 60s called "Space Chess" (and here). That'd be pretty cool in 3D.

While not patented, this game based on hand gestures is under copyright. To be fair, the game is copyrighted, not necessarily the gestures. Could the gestures be used in another game? Also, the author is quite liberal in his enforcement of his copyright. I suspect the game is rarely played by gestures in any case, rather is it played online or in a pencil-and-paper version.

Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, 1528, Book II para. 31, Singleton translation

(according to http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/41789/item/923029#item923029)

Looks very similar to a board game called Tsuro

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28522/finger-ball Nice rock-paper-scissors variant for American football fans...

I used to be a PC gamer, I went to console since I decided that if I was going to get DRM on my machine I might as well put in in a physical sandbox, and that's getting to be obnoxious too.

Would you like to try out some games that have:

• no Internet connection required
• usually excellent customer service
• no DRM, ever
• full cross-platform compatibility
• only one copy required for multiplayer
• all games in HD and surround sound
• no lag -- guaranteed*

Gaming Unplugged

That's one of the reasons why I focus on boardgames instead of computergames, like reading a book compared to watching a movie on average it can stimulate the mind more as the game design is usually more intricate and it is more social! I can recommend playing Puerto Rico and Imperial 2030, also see: BoardGameGeek ranking.

I loved pentominoes and had several tangrams. There are several other offbeat games which stimulate the young mind, such as:
- Amazing Labyrinth http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1219/the-amazeing-labyrinth
- Triominoes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triominoes
- Mahjong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mah_Jong
They can be played with whatever skill level you choose, even with a 6-year-old. Our youngest kid loves all of them, but is not keen on tangrams.

Not monopoly, but anything on these lists:

Younger: http://boardgamegeek.com/childrensgames/browse/boardgame

Older: http://boardgamegeek.com/familygames/browse/boardgame

Not monopoly, but anything on these lists:

Younger: http://boardgamegeek.com/childrensgames/browse/boardgame

Older: http://boardgamegeek.com/familygames/browse/boardgame

I believe your information is a little outdated, as illustrated by this map of the known world.

That must be the map the CBC used to determine that the quake occurred in Ontario despite the fact that they provided a map showing it in Quebec.

Ontario and Quebec is actually called Eastern Canada. Those 3 provinces west of Ontario are central. While British Columbia is West.

Central Canada.

I believe your information is a little outdated, as illustrated by this map of the known world.

Monopoly's multiple patents were been variously upheld and overturned on the facts of the cases.

Atari settled over a patent for an in-game camera perspective.

Beneficial Innovations received a settlement from Digg Inc., CBS Interactive Inc., and Jabez Networks Inc. over a patent on Internet gaming technology.

Innovention Toys won an injunction against MGA Entertainment, Toy-R-Us, and Wal-Mart for the game Laser Battle infringing on Innovention's game Khet, and was granted summary judgment when MGA and Wal-mart appealed.

So as far as I know, yes.

And now you know... and knowing is half the battle.

Anyone who's old enough to remember playing tabletop roleplaying games in the 80's and early 90's is likely already aware of Games Workshop's track record. They set boardgaming back by twenty years.

After establishing themselves as the dominant games publisher in the U.K. and having formed a network of like-minds in the 'White Dwarf' magazine and Citadel Miniatures staff, GW merged with Citadel c1989 and White Dwarf became the house publication. Actually, I'll re-word that: It became a monthly advertisement for all things GW.

White Dwarf was almost the only source of games news in those pre-internet days and it had the kind of persuasion and disinformation powers Rupert Murdoch could only envy. The letters page (what they had in place of forum posts in those days, kids) was first neutered (only GW fanboys got printed) then dropped altogether. Presumably because GW wanted to remove all traces of thinking from their fans. Only Games Workshop published games were reviewed - and always only every favourably - and only Games Workshop events were publicised. By 1992 it wasn't even covering anything outside of GW's current catalogue.

Citadel Miniatures had also been co-opted. Their range of miniatures became so much a part of the GW product line that older miniatures were often renamed to suit GW's revised history.
(E.g, a range of 1986 Elric of Melnibone characters became generic GW Elves and an early line of Lord Of The Rings characters were all dispersed to generic 'warrior' or 'wizard'. Even the White Dwarf himself was later redesignated 'Imperial Dwarf'.)
As well as this, the style of the miniatures became ever more 'cartoon' and a lot of the earlier sexuality and violence was purged. Citadel used to have miniatures of slave-girls being roasted over open fires, nude Goblins and Ogres carrying sacks of bloody body parts. Now, every miniature is relentlessly (Christian) family-friendly.

However Games Workshop's corporate policies are hardly 'friendly' in any sense of the word. Endlessly re-releasing the same core games as 'new' releases with (barely) altered rules, unreasonably overpricing miniatures (currently, a 5-man Space Marine squad costs £20. Twenty Pounds Sterling! for five plastic toy soldiers you're meant to paint yourself.), delaying deliveries and payments to competitors, endless recycling of illustrations and ideas, it goes on.

A lot of gamers will point and say that GW has some great games and awesome miniatures but in fact, nothing GW does is original, their best work was pre-1993 and they don't make a single item that isn't designed specifically to shift large amounts of overpriced, crap, miniatures paint. Even the pulp fiction they churn out. There are good, cheaper miniatures made by their competitors. There are also far superior boardgames available (see http://www.boardgamegeek.com//).

It's pretty obvious at this stage that Games Workshop have no respect for their customers or fans. Most of their fans are teenagers and although teenagers with a Games Workshop habit need pretty well off parents to pay for their fix, GW clearly expects them to 'grow out of it' at some stage and piss off. Just as long as there's another generation of saps in line, GW doesn't care.

And that, ladies and gentlegeeks, is why Games Workshop are bastards and why should anyone be surprised at anything they do?

Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirls, to be even more precise!

Perhaps they should try Junta instead.

When you wer "working with violent video games", by which you mean you made a dishonest ass of yourself misrepresenting my position. Your so-called "simplification" was nothing of the sort.

My analogy, and that of the person you also misrepresented before, here for you again:

Moryath: Normal sane people will enjoy a reasonable amount of cake with no ill effects. People who are predisposed to excess will overindulge on a regular basis and receive ill effects.
Hatta: Overeating cake on a regular basis will cause someone to be fat, but this does not mean we should ban all cake.

In other words, normal, sane people will engage in what people may consider "violent" play behavior - be it full-contact sports, martial arts, American Gladiators, watching UFC, watching pro wrestling, playing first-person shooter video games or rail shooters or beat-em-ups or "fighting" games, with no major ill effect. There are social and nonsocial versions of these games, and they may be enjoyed in turn.

People with a predisposition towards violence, meanwhile, will specifically seek violent play out for a different manner of enjoyment, and will probably grow in general towards more violent acts, but they will do so no matter what media or activity they get involved in.

We get the same distorted logic around the beginning of hunting season every year. "Animal rights" groups come out screaming about how hunters are "killing Bambi." My usual response is "fuck Bambi, they're basically giant rats running around eating everyone's gardens, a bunch of 'em freeze every year when the food supply gets low, and the only predator around here other than people with rifles/bows culling the herd is the occasional car."

I suppose you'd call me "violent" for that. Meh. I enjoy playing FPS titles for the same reason I enjoy puzzle titles, I like trying to break the system and do the occasional speedrun. I enjoy the Hitman and Thief titles not for the idea of killing everything in sight, but rather for the idea that you can puzzle out the levels, go through and complete your objective, and then walk out the building with nobody the wiser. It's a puzzle, and that's what makes it fun.

Then again, my favorite board game is Arkham Horror. The reason why is simple: it's a cooperative game, with players working together, rather than an "every player for themselves" type game. And that's a welcome change from the absolute ton of boardgames out there that are all about players trying to out-compete each other. It's nice to get together with people, throw back a few beers, and have a boardgame where you can pat each other on the back and help each other out instead of wondering how you can get that slight advantage over everyone else at the table.

Yes.

Runewars for the Casual gamer? Give me a fucking break. I've never heard of it, and when I looked at the # of pieces that comes with the game, I thought it made Axis and Allies look like Candyland.

Runewars includes:

        * 40-page instruction guide
        * Nearly two hundred highly-detailed plastic miniatures
        * Over two hundred tokens
        * Over two hundred cards, both small and standard sized
        * 13 map tiles

The contents of the box:

192 plastic figures
10 plastic mountains
12 plastic dial connectors
16 activation tokens
1 battle marker
7 city tokens
26 damage tokens
8 defeated hero markers
20 development tokens
35 exploration tokens
4 home realm setup markers
40 influence tokens
13 large map tiles
12 resource arrows
38 rune tokens
16 stronghold tokens
24 training tokens
4 faction sheets
4 reference sheets
32 order cards
23 quest cards
30 fate cards
12 hero cards
16 objective cards
25 reward cards
32 season cards
50 tactics cards
3 title cards
1 40-page rulebook

What you're saying is: you're not a board gamer, you're not familiar with modern board games, the only board games you do know are old and tired, and you only play those as a last resort.

Maybe you should have a look at BoardGameGeek. Several of the games he mentioned are in the top-10, and deservedly so.

If they talk about "perfect board games" and then mention Scrabble, then

THEY DO NOT KNOW A FUCKING THING ABOUT BOARD GAMES.

Napoleon in Europe cost me $80, Diplomacy cost me $60, Settlers of Catan with expansions cost me $180 ($45 x 3 + $15 x 3), Through the Ages costs $70 right now, History of the World was $65. Some of us like good board games. (I own all of those except Through the Ages and History of the World, which a friend owns).

I have not even mentioned any games by Games Workshop. If you include them, the iPad + Phones would be cheaper...

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3518/napoleon-in-europe

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/483/diplomacy

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/13/the-settlers-of-catan

http://www.eaglegames.net/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=CBG001

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/224/history-of-the-world

Napoleon in Europe cost me $80, Diplomacy cost me $60, Settlers of Catan with expansions cost me $180 ($45 x 3 + $15 x 3), Through the Ages costs $70 right now, History of the World was $65. Some of us like good board games. (I own all of those except Through the Ages and History of the World, which a friend owns).

I have not even mentioned any games by Games Workshop. If you include them, the iPad + Phones would be cheaper...

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3518/napoleon-in-europe

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/483/diplomacy

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/13/the-settlers-of-catan

http://www.eaglegames.net/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=CBG001

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/224/history-of-the-world

Napoleon in Europe cost me $80, Diplomacy cost me $60, Settlers of Catan with expansions cost me $180 ($45 x 3 + $15 x 3), Through the Ages costs $70 right now, History of the World was $65. Some of us like good board games. (I own all of those except Through the Ages and History of the World, which a friend owns).

I have not even mentioned any games by Games Workshop. If you include them, the iPad + Phones would be cheaper...

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3518/napoleon-in-europe

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/483/diplomacy

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/13/the-settlers-of-catan

http://www.eaglegames.net/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=CBG001

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/224/history-of-the-world

Napoleon in Europe cost me $80, Diplomacy cost me $60, Settlers of Catan with expansions cost me $180 ($45 x 3 + $15 x 3), Through the Ages costs $70 right now, History of the World was $65. Some of us like good board games. (I own all of those except Through the Ages and History of the World, which a friend owns).

I have not even mentioned any games by Games Workshop. If you include them, the iPad + Phones would be cheaper...

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3518/napoleon-in-europe

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/483/diplomacy

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/13/the-settlers-of-catan

http://www.eaglegames.net/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=CBG001

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/224/history-of-the-world

Ok, I hope not to be modded troll for this, but probably will be.

I have played a lot of FP shooters. The innovation from one generation to the next in terms of graphics and stability has been wonderful, brilliant, and lacking in magic.

What is missing, and what could make the next big FPS is gameplay. Anyone who wants to do it right needs to sit down, play with 3-5 friends some Renier Knizia board games
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/2/reiner-knizia
as an education is what gameplay could be, compared to what it is. Don't call me a crank if you have not played Modern Art, Tigris and Euphrates, and Through the Desert.

Trust me, BGGers hate GW now. Yes, space hulk was a limited run, and hard to get, and that only made people want it more. Then suddenly every rule summary, player aid, scenario, card list, etc. for every single game that had at one point been owned by GW was lost in the black hole of their legal departement. Suddenly people weren't NEARLY as eager to get one of those limited-run space hulk re-releases.

List of the things removed in the purge.

Go in and look on the discussions as well; a sizable number of Space Hulk fans, who were recently triumphing at their old game's meteoric rise, are now practically in tears over people's "vengeful" rating changes.

I know it isn't electronic, but if you like M.U.L.E. then you should check out planet steam: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/23094 which is a board game very similar to MULE gameplay.

I also pulled out Diablo 2:LOD in the past month to play with friends. We're having a blast. We also started playing BOARD GAMES!!! How old school, right. Not monopoly style games, but Arkham Horror. We got this for about $20 on sale. We get so into it we lose track of the time. I can't remember the last Video game that did that to me.

Don't forget The Forge, a great place to find off the beaten path games.

Oh, and, of course, Troll Lord games for those of us in the "get off my lawn" demographic.

If your cheap, you can wait a year until Free RPG Day

Of course, me? I prefer boardgames. (and card games).

My answer? Boardgames. Find a boardgame club near you, join in and socialize. A lot of geeks have found boardgames as a good way to interact with other people, so chances are that the boardgame club near you has people like you who are trying to get social. The main point is not to go from 0 to 100 in one go, but to horn those social skills. I find boardgames a great opportunity for this as boardgames still call that inside geek that lives in you but now you are socializing at the same time. Especially the new european styled boardgames are great for this. A great site to get into boardgames is http://www.boardgamegeek.com/

It's just that most board games are pretty dumbed down. You also cant get the real good board games/ Card games at most stores you have to go to specialty geky places to get them.

Car Wars, is an awesome board game. settlers of Catan, Carcassone, Munchkin (Yes it's a board game now) etc....

I have personally corrupted many a youth with The above games. The thing is, you NEED 4 or more players that will be very vocal for them to be fun. With Settlers I try to encourage collusion and to try to bend the rules trading, Munchkin the same..

That's about the real problem - non-mass-market board games tend to be only available at either game stores, or online. These days, online is your best bet - the game store I frequent is quite popular as it's one of the few online for Canada (Craving for a Game) - especially since it's one of the few on the West Coast.

In the US, Amazon.com tends to have the games, and if not, eBay and the like. BoardGameGeek tends to have links to eBay searches that have those games. However, nothing online can really replace (I found) the B&M store. Craving for a Game is near me, so I visit it often enough that the proprietor knows me and what I like, so I have a personal recommendation engine (and he has game rentals plus in-store trials, so you can see if a game is to your liking, or wait for game night and play against others - he supplies the games (or you can too), and everyone comes and plays.

Also, if you're in the high-tech field, it's a good way to spend a lunch hour "offline" and away from the screen - depending on the size of your company, you can easily get the requisite 4+ people (at one point we often had to have two games going). The only downside is this eliminates every game that claimes to take 45 minutes or longer (we find that if a game claims 60 minutes per game, it's probably closer to 75-90).

The good news is that the bigger games (Catan, Carcassonne, etc) tend to be available at larger stores (especially large comic book/toy stores). But there are a lot of real gems that you'll only find at dedicated stores.

Our group has settled on two games consistently (but we do try others to mix it up) - The Seven Seals (aka Zing! in English, but its German/French name is Seven Seals), and Frank's Zoo (a delightfully simple game that has a good element of strategy, and is close to Big 2).