Boardgame Recommendations For Xmas?

Thanks to GamerDad for their article discussing recommended board games to buy or play this Christmas. The writer argues: "Particularly in the last ten years, board games have evolved and changed, so that they are a far cry from the games of old", and goes on to recommend anything from the Lord Of The Rings board game ("one of the most unique board games of recent years"), to Dvonn ("A game that could best be compared to the abstract strategy of checkers.") What are you going to be buying novice board gamer relatives this Xmas?

Comments

cheapass games

[dr_leviathan]

There are lots of good boardgames available from Cheapass Games: http://www.cheapass.com. I usually buy 4 or 5 games from them around christmas time as stocking stuffers.

Re:cheapass games

[clamatius]

Cheapass makes some great games and obviously you can't beat their prices. However, a bunch of their games are long on flavour but short on game balance, so their replay value isn't necessarily amazing. Also note that the games don't usually come with everything you'll need to play; you have to scavenge the bits you need from other games. For example, Monopoly is a good source of money bills for their money-based games. If you're giving the games to someone who doesn't play a lot of games, that may potentially be a problem and you might want to stay away from Cheapass stuff.

That said, Cheapass games I'd personally recommend:

Cube Farm. A simple but elegant strategy game. Ok for novice game players.

Freeloader. Again, great flavour and a nice level of strategy. However, this one is more complicated so you might not want to get it if you're giving it to a real novice. Also very greedy on the number of pieces it needs (30+ different-coloured counters for each player).

Give me the Brain. Less strategy and more luck in this one (not necessarily a bad thing). If you're giving it to young children, skip this one because of zombie-related humour. Male teenagers will probably like it, though.

The Very Clever Pipe Game. Pure strategy, and small enough to be a good stocking filler. Doesn't need extra pieces. It's really a 2-player game though although it claims to be a 4-player game too, so be warned.

Re:cheapass games

[david.given]

My favourite Cheapass game is, in fact, the free one that comes on their catalogue: Fight the Power.

It's terribly, terribly simple. Each player controls a faction of elves working at the north pole. The aim of the game is to either grow your faction to eight elves (at which point you are now strong enough to overthrow Santa) or to reduce your faction to zero elves (at which point you are now safe enough to rat out the other factions to Santa). Both are win conditions.

Your elves are represented by six-sided dice. You start with four elves. The numbers shown on the dice are important, and persist from turn to turn; they only change when explicitely described below.

Play goes round the table. Each turn you may either fight or recruit.

To recruit, you steal an elf showing a given number from another player. You may only do this if you have more elves with the same number than the other player does.

To fight, you roll zero or more of your elves. The player you're attacking rolls all of their elves. Highest numbers shown wins. The winner must take an elf from the loser.

The reason why this game is so good is because whenever you gain an advantage, another player may be disadvantaged or advantages. If you, with four elves, attack a player with two elves, and you win the battle, your victim is now closer to winning the whole game (because zero is a win condition).

Every move you make affects the entire game state in non-obvious ways. Frequently I've seen someone attack another player just to force the other player to reroll their elves, because the numbers they had were too good. Attacking with an intent to lose is very common.

Total equipment needed: 4D6 per person. Games are short, the gameplay is addictive and surprisingly subtle. You'll play half a dozen games very quickly and then suddenly slow down as you start getting the hang of how it all works and start planning ahead.

Fun.

Spiel des Jahres

[clamatius]

For those of you not in the know, the Germans own the boardgame market. Boardgames are a much bigger cultural thing in Germany than anywhere else. Almost all the best boardgames are German in origin and luckily you can mostly get them in English translations. Rio Grande is the biggest manufacturer of translated German games.

For family-style boardgames with a bit of depth, you can't go wrong with any of the Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) winners. This is an annual award. As I recall, it's awarded at the Essen Game Festival. Winners tend to be fairly simple games suitable for family play (rather than being aimed at hard-core gamers) while having enough strategy to satisfy the hard-core gamer at the same time.

I have never played a bad game that won the Spiele des Jahres. Some of my favourites that have won in previous years:

Settlers of Catan
Manhattan
Carcassonne
Mississippi Queen

As the parent points out, Puerto Rico is also a fabulous game and I would highly recommend it.

Re:Spiel des Jahres

[Grab]

I can't remember if it's a Spiel des Jahres, but the card game "Citadels" is very good. Rules are simple, there's a lot of strategy involved (you can be nasty if you want to :-) and a bit of luck, and you can have up to 9 people playing it.

As far as traditional games go, I *love* Mah-Jongg. (No, I *don't* mean the computer version where you match tiles!) If you can play Rummy, then Mah-Jongg is very similar. There's also something very tactilely appealing about using chunky tiles instead of cards.

Grab.

Settlers of Catan or Expansions

[Prien715]

We used to play monopoly all the time, it was almost a tradition. Then, our gaming group tried settlers and fell in love. The reasons I like it so much are as follows:

*It's not really a cut-throat game like monopoly where your main sorce of income is from making other players pay. Instead, the game is heavily focused on trading with other players for mutual benefit.

* It's also fairly simple. Most people learn the game about halfway through their first game though learning to master it is a different story.

* Close games. The game is played to points and games are usually close until the end. I dislike lots of games, both computer and boardgames, because there comes a point when a player's really lost and the game's over but it goes on anyway because some player still thinks he has a shot or always plays until the end.

* Expansions. Though I don't like seafarers so much, Cities and Knights is a great expansion which adds complexity and additional levels of strategy.

* Staying power. This game was released almost 10 years ago. It's still very popular (see here). That's the sign of a classic.

Re:Cranium

[Ted Cabeen]

We played Cranium a few times, and it just didn't thrill us. The trivial pursuit style questions were incredibly easy, and the other three categories were sort of amusing but not stellar. Combine that with the fact that advancement on the track was incredibly random and unbalanced, and it just didnt make for a well done game. IMHO, if you want to play pictionary or charades, just do that.

Party games

[clamatius]

At Christmas time, you usually have a bunch of potential players around if your family is into games, so you may want to think about buying a party-type game.

Here's some solid recommendations. My personal favourites out of that list:

Balderdash. Solid party word game. Very little kids will have trouble keeping up, however.

Perudo. Simple bluffing dice game that pretty much anyone can play.

Apples to Apples. Excellent family game.

Pit. A classic trading game. Very, very noisy to play, your house ends up being like the NYSE. Lots of fun though and kids like the noisiness of it.

Boggle. A classic word game. It does heavily rewards skill with word games, so if you have a couple of total word game freaks in the family it may not be that much fun to play with them (e.g. if you wouldn't play Scrabble with them, you might want to steer clear).

Heh..

[calebtucker]

Mousetrap. Heh, anyone remember this one?

Seriously though, a game that both adults and children can enjoy is Rummikub. It's pretty simple to learn but it can lead to some intense games that involve borrowing numbers from the game board during your turn while still leaving the board in a consistent state (just realized I borrowed this phrase from my database class for which I'm cramming for the final exam, which is tomorrow). It's kind of hard to explain, but it's a good game. This is coming from someone who really hates learning new card games and such.

Free as in Beer: 1000 Blank White Cards

[NickFusion]

Ok, not quite, you need a pack of index cards, but otherwise free.

As discussed in an oddly similar thread about 4 posts down, this is a DIY game I stumbled upon recently, and have bcome totally obsessed with.

The rules are very simple, you can google for it, or read the rules on my site (second post from top).

It's a game that gets more & more fun the more you play, and no two games will ever be the same.

So many games.... so little money

[Lithium_Golem]

I am a huge boardgame freak and here are just a few of my favorites (sorted by gamer type for your convienence)

For the Video Game Type
Age of Mythology. - Awsome translation of the popular RTS video game. A unique style of play indeed. 2-4 players without expansion
Civilization: The Board Game - Not a direct translation of CIV III but provides players an opportunity for intense military, political and economic strategy. 2-6 players (standard and advanced rules)
Warcraft: The Board Game - Provides all the elements of the RTS Game in a very nice turn based style. The board is dynamic to allow for many different playing scenarios!
Frag! - Take a First Person Shooter like Quake and turn it into a board game. Run around collecting weapons to kill other players. Very fun for a quick game. Capture the flag to deathmatch rules.

For the War Gamer Type
Axis & Allies. - Classic WWII simulation. Will soon be updated with a new rules release. 2-5 players
Risk 2210 AD. - Beefed up version of the original RISK. Not my favorite game, but it is fun. 2-6 players I believe.

For the Formula One Type
Formula De. - Formula One simulation board game with real tracks! Rules for standard and league type play. 2-10+ players.

For the Fun Type
EVO. - Play as a species of dinosaur struggling to survive until the doomsday meteor hits. Great game for all ages. 3-5 Players
Drakon. - An evolving tile based board game that is different every time. The expansion is great! 2-6 Players

And Finally... For the Geek Type
Chez Geek. - This isn't a board game, but it doesn't matter. This is a must have for any gaming geek. Take everything funny (true or not) about geeks, design a wonderful card game and add in some hilarious flavor text and art and you have this game. I've played this game for hours on end with geeks and non-geeks alike. Huge laughs for all. Get this game. Trust me. Do it now. Oh, and the expansions are great too.

And no, I don't work for Steve Jackson Games.