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Traditional Games 100 - Rating 2003's Boardgames
Thanks to OgreCave for pointing out The Traditional Games 100, the favorite board and card games of 2003, as voted by the editors and playtesters of GAMES Magazine. The site explains that "...each year since 1980, GAMES Magazine has published a Buyer's Guide to Games in their year-end holiday issue", and this year's overall winner is Alan Moon & Aaron Weissblum's New England from Uberplay. Elsewhere, "Face 2 Face Games tops our Family Games category with Sid Sackson's hilarious I'm the Boss! [and] Days of Wonder won the Family Cards category with Queen's Necklace", among many other category winners.
Occasionally we dig out one of our Monopoly boards for a game, but currently we're playing the card game "Fluxx". It's very enjoyable.
but the effort required to train enough people to play a new game with weird or complex rules just isn't worth it anymore
;) Ppl that play many boardgames are also more willing to try new games and give them a second or third shot if they didn't like them the first time. This allows for a higher obscurity factor.
Ah, you need to find the right people. I agree that for the average family (or friend) players, who get together every few weeks to play for a couple of hours, complex rules and games are a no-no. Simple rules with a lot of interaction - the reason you want to play in the first place - are a must.
Complex games with complex rules are for the avid player. You need to play those games regularly, otherwise you've forgotten 50% of the rules next time you play
My cats ate my karma. They also wrote this comment.
My wide and I spent last Saturday at home playing snap. You know, where you each take turns to put a card down, and if they're both the same, you shout "SNAP" and win all the cards? Maybe it's called something different in the US.
Anyway, I didn't want to play at first, bacause I thought it was a stupid kid's game, but actually there's a lot of skill in volved - just not the sort of skill usually involved in card games - more speed of pattern recognition and quickness of reactions (hence this post being wonderfully on topic).
After a while, we both got so fast that we had to put an empty cigarette packet on the table, which we hit as we shouted "snap", so , by seeing who actually hit the packet first, we vcuold break ties.
It gets more complex, too - snap can actually be quite a deep game:
We were both playing our cards to separate stacks in front of us; a snap situation was defined as when the cards on top of both piles matched. However, we often felt the urge to call out "snap" when putting a matching card on the same pile. So we put another cigarette packet on the other side of the table, and defined such a condition as "autosnap". Calling out the wrong sort of snap or hitting the wrong fag packet counted as a foul. Next time we plan to implement more features: contrasnap, where the top card on one pile matches the second-from top on the opposite pile, consecutive snap, where the card is one away in sequence from the other, autoconsecutive snap, and contraconsecutive snap.
We'll need six empty cigarette packets (or similar, to count as "bases" in different parts of the room. Should be quite a workout.
evil math within Nature's Cubic Creation!
Board games rule! If you have other sufficiently geeky board game friends, it can be way more fulfilling than your usual FPS, racing game, etc.
I suggest checking out Board Game Geek, it's truly an awesome site. Of particular interest, the games considered the best by the BGGs are here.
There's also a German board game WORLD of sorts where you can play a heck of a lot of board games online. Check it out here.
Games Magzine does not sell these games. Funagain, the online vendor of games, however is hosting a copy of the Games 100 list, with links to their own database.
If I wasn't personal friends with the owner of a local board game store I would buy all my games from Funagain. They've got a fantastic selection, and since Games's top 100 list is only listing games that are in print, there's no reason Funagain should not carry each and every one of them.
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!
The Games 100 is based on games that were released in the previous year (although I believe they take a few liberties and include some previous year's winners as well.) Fluxx has been around for a few years, and I believe it's appeared on their list at least once in the past. They do have a "Hall of Fame" of games that have been produced for 10 years straight and that are considered classics in some way. I wouldn't be surprised if Fluxx makes it to the list on its tenth anniversary. The Looney Labs people (creators of Fluxx) did get a game on the list: Nanofictionary, a very creative, random game of storytelling that I find "feels" a bit like Fluxx without the rules (which is interesting, since Fluxx is all about rules...) Nanofictionary is worth checking out, as is Aquarius, another of their games. Another amusing game that may or may not still be in print is Elixir, in which players collect components to "cast spells" that alter the rules. You can even cast a spell to make someone go get drinks and snacks. Fun stuff :)
...the effort required to train enough people to play a new game with weird or complex rules just isn't worth it anymore.
I can relate to your problem -- there are a lot of games that you can't just sit down and play with anyone. In fact, some of those are my favorites. But there are a lot of games with fairly simple rules that you can teach almost anyone in a matter of minutes.
"Apples to Apples" and "Fluxx" come to mind as games that almost anyone can be taught and jump right in and play. They also have the advantage that, while someone can win, no one can get eliminated. Nothing puts off new gamers like being eliminated from a game they barely understand.
Games like "Settlers of Catan" or "Carcassone" are a good "next step" for people that you try to get to play board games: the strategy is a little deeper and the rules require more explanation, but they're still fun and fairly easy to get into.
And finally, you're right -- trying to find these games is a pain. However, you can get a lot of these online. The original article should lead to funagain games, one of many places online that you can purchase these games... heck, for cheaper than you can get them in a store.
Kill Doctor Lucky is especially recommended.
And the Mario Party series of Nintendo games are all fantastic, and are all basically board games. Mario Party 5 night tonight! :)