Slashdot Mirror
Intelligent Board Games and Social Interaction?
frogcircus asks: "Several weeks ago, at a neighborhood yard sale, my wife found an intact copy of Scotland Yard. I had been looking for one for several years (ever suspicious of eBay), driven by fond memories of group games in the late 80s. We played with a group of friends last night, and while some of us loved the game, others seemed a little less enthralled. It soon surfaced that the logic and reasoning involved in the game made it highly attractive for some of us. This got me thinking that perhaps the game was especially appealing to the geek mind. Which leads to my question: to which board games do you feel a close affinity? And to what degree have they engendered social interaction who don't share your particular interests?"
The Rail Builder games from Mayfair (too lazy to google the links) were awesome. There were versions for the UK, Europe, India, North America, and Japan, IIRC. Best of all, though, was the fantasy version - the mighty Iron Dragon. For a while I was playing a game a night with a friend who was staying with my family; we had it down to such an art that we could get through a 2-player game in 45 minutes.
;-)
I'm on my second copy, though it's lent out at the moment. I can't think of another board game that captured my interest like Iron Dragon. We had quite the little circle of players going for a while, too, though I think it's fair to say that we are all geeks of one sort or another.
There was an attempt to create an online version, but I don't know what happened to it - I've never been able to get the demo to work on my machines. Anyone know anything about this?
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
First and foremost Settlers of Catan. Other games may be Junta for the social interaction, History of the World, then the list drops off fast.
You might be hard pressed to find this game as well as the many expansion but it sure is a lot of fun and a geek game. Programming robots to take part in a race of conveyor belts, pits and laser damages. WOW.
As far as I know the game is discontinued but the community is still out there. There is plenty of alternative board to download, new rule sets and so on if you go looking.
Go Twitch!!
Hampered by a tedious setup and long turns, A&A is a battle of strategic resources that involves equal parts WWII and trash talk. It is fun to play with three to five players. (With two players, there is less finger pointing amongst the Allies or Axis. What fun is that?)
If you're a geek, you love history, and you've never played it, you really must try it some time.
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
Robo Rally has to be the #1 geek board game out there. Unfortunately it's out of print and you can only get it used and abused from places like Ebay
I still create RoboRally parties and spend hours playing this game with friends and co-workers. And when I can't get together a group of people to play, there are variants online that are really cool to play too.
It was created by Richard Garfield (the same guy that made the Magic the Gathering game) and published by Wizards of the Coast back in 1994
It won 2 awards that next year
I concur with the recommendations of Settlers of Catan and Chess. In addition, I'd also recommend Trivial Pursuit, which is a good social game as well as an excellent brain tease.
Foremost however, I can't believe my absolute favorite board game has yet to be mentioned. Axis & Allies! Avalon Hill just recently released a Revised edition of the game in celebration of its 20th anniversary. It's a fantastic game for 2-5 players that pits countries (the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union), against each other in the middle of World War II. It's a strategy game that can last for several hours.
Somehow though, I almost always wind up playing Russia...
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde
I love showing the game to friends that have not yet played it, and somewhere around mid-to-endgame of their first play, suddenly the light turns on, and they see things like "Oh, Mayor might help me, but it would REALLY help you, so I should take something better, and force YOU to spend your role on Mayor" and things like that. It's great when everyone starts to see the potential of how to screw your neighbor's coffee crop by Captaining at the right time.
A game with a ton of strategies, that allows for a lot of thought, yet that doesn't take too long to play.
And the fact that it's BrettSpielWelt-compatible doesn't hurt either :)
T.
Another big hit was Four Player Chess, formerly purchaseable at 4playerchess.com but is now managed by a domain-name squatter. :/ Anyway, mine has always been a big hit amongst the Coffee Shop Crowd. it's not too hard one of your own. Take a normal chess board then add three rows to each side (making the board look like a big Plus sign). Add two sets of Chess pieces (preferably all distinct) and you're off!
Steve Jackson Games' Knightmare Chess. It's a card game played while playing chess. Play a card, move a piece. The cards change the rules as you go (e.g. "All Pawns attack forward and move diagnal until this card is banished"). This game in conjunction with Four Player Chess is hours of insane fun. A quick search revealed one for sale elsewhere.
Lunch Money is a sick and masterfully done game of kill-thy-neighbor. Always a big hit amongst those with a ken of violence.
Hot Death UNO. My personal-favorite diversion, an extension of Crazy Eights (UNO), this card game add almost 30 new cards to the game of UNO. For example: Mutual Assured Destruction, Fuck You!, Harvester of Sorrows, The Shitter, Glasnost.... This game is not for the meek and merciful. There's also a PC version here and a Sourceforge project desperately in need of a programmer with mad (motivational) skillz.
the brain teasers are incredible (some of them are a little preposterous), and it scales well. sometimes i'll get bored and just start trying to figure out the questions myself. the game really comes into its own, however, when you have two teams of players constantly double-guessing themselves.
there have been a couple sequels that add different types of puzzles as well, but they're getting harder to come by.